Following several meetings with international specialists, WHO will start adopting the new preferred name “mpox” to replace monkeypox. For a year, both names will be used interchangeably as “monkeypox” is phased out.

Racist and stigmatizing language was noticed and reported to WHO when the monkeypox outbreak grew earlier this year. These incidents occurred online, in other contexts, and in some communities. A number of people and nations expressed their concerns in a variety of open and closed meetings and requested the WHO to suggest a course of action to alter the name.

Under the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) and the WHO Family of International Health Related Classifications, WHO is responsible for naming new diseases as well as, very rarely, those that already exist. This is done through a consultative process including WHO Member States.

WHO held discussions in accordance with the ICD update procedure to get opinions from a variety of professionals, governments, and the general public, who were invited to submit recommendations for new names. WHO makes the following recommendations in light of these consultations and additional discussions with Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus:

adoption of the disease’s new English synonym, mpox.
Monkeypox will be replaced with the chosen name “mpox” following a year-long transition phase. This helps to allay experts’ fears about confusion brought on by a name change during a widespread outbreak. Additionally, it gives time to update WHO publications and finish the ICD updating procedure.
In the upcoming days, the ICD-10 online will include the synonym mpox. It will be included in ICD-11, the current international standard for health data, clinical documentation, and statistical aggregation, when it is formally released in 2023.

To match historical data, the term “monkeypox” will still be a searchable term in ICD.

The rationale, scientific appropriateness, level of current usage, pronounceability, usability in other languages, absence of geographical or zoological references, and ease of retrieval of historical scientific information were all factors taken into account while making the recommendations.

The ICD upgrading procedure often takes several years. Although the stages were followed, the process in this instance was hastened.

During the consultation process, a number of advisory bodies were consulted, including experts from the medical, scientific, classification, and statistics advisory committees, which were made up of representatives from 45 different governments.

The topic of the new name’s use in many languages was thoroughly covered. Other languages may employ the preferred term, mpox. If any more naming difficulties develop, they will be resolved using the same procedure. Usually, discussions about translations take place in official partnership with the relevant government agencies and the relevant scientific societies.

To reduce any long-term negative effects of the current name and from adoption of the new name, WHO will use the term “mpox” in its communications and encourages others to do the same.