The World Health Organization (WHO) works mainly to reduce the physical burden of the disease. But last week, he turned to another kind of evil insult and stigma inflicted by diseases named for people, places and animals. Among existing monikers that its new guidelines "for the name of human New infectious diseases" discourage: Ebola, swine flu, fever, Rift Valley, Creutzfeldt-Jakob and monkeypox Instead. WHO said that researchers, health officials, and journalists must use more neutral, generic terms, such as severe respiratory illness or a neurological syndrome novel.
many scientists agree that disease names can be problematic, but they are not the new rulebook is necessarily an improvement. "It will definitely lead to boring names and a lot of confusion," predicts Linfa Wang, an expert on emerging infectious diseases the Australian animal health Laboratory in Geelong. "You must not take political correctness so far that the end can not distinguish these diseases," said Christian Drosten, a virologist at the University of Bonn, Germany.
Naming diseases has long been a cumbersome process . Badly chosen names may stigmatize people, as did a gay-related immune deficiency, a first name for AIDS. They can also lead to confusion and hurt tourism and trade. called swine flu, for example, is not transmitted by pigs, but some countries still banned imports of pork or pigs slaughtered after an outbreak of 09. More recently, some Arab countries were angry that new disease caused by a coronavirus has been dubbed the Middle east respiratory syndrome.
Although "it is usually the scientists who come up with these names ... wHO gets diplomatic pressure "if someone takes action, said Drosten. The new guidelines, published May 8 are designed to facilitate the process. "WHO has to do something to get out of the firing line," said Drosten.
Since the news of a new pathogen often spreads quickly, "it is important that the name of the appropriate disease is affected by that, the first report "disease, wHO guidance notes. According to the guidelines, he added, could "minimize unnecessary negative impact of disease names on trade, travel, tourism or well-being of animals, and avoid causing offense to all cultural, social, national, regional , professional or ethnic ".
To this end, sick new names should not include geographic locations; the names of people, occupations, animals, or food; or "terms that encourage excessive fear" (as unknown, fatal and epidemic). Instead, the names should use generic descriptions of symptoms (respiratory diseases or watery diarrhea) and specific terms describing patients, epidemiology or the environment (juvenile, mother, seasonal, summer, the coast), and the names of pathogens and arbitrary identifiers (alpha, beta, 1, 2, 3).
the group that came up with the recommendations met "a few times" during a year, says Kazuaki Miyagishima, director of food safety, zoonoses and foodborne diseases of WHO, and a committee member. Among the ideas they discussed: naming diseases after Greek gods, using a system similar to that used for naming comets or by alternating male and female names as is done with hurricanes "But while the appointment of a Hurricane Katrina may not offend people if we do. for a disease, it is not only a hurricane for 1 week. it will make its way in the history of human suffering, "Miyagishima said .
The guide is well-intentioned but goes too far, says Ian Lipkin, a virologist at Columbia University. "I do not see how it will be helpful to eliminate names like monkeypox that provide an overview of the natural hosts and potential sources of infection," he said.
it could also become more difficult to easily distinguish the disease. For example, under the new rules, Marburg disease (named after a town in Germany) have been called filovirus hemorrhagic fever associated 1, while the Ebola virus (named after a river) could have been Filovirus -associated hemorrhagic fever 2. These bland names "lose something that is more than picturesque," said Howard Markel, a medical historian at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Drosten added that geographical names are sometimes justified. It was clear that MERS, for example, was a partner in the Middle East. "Would it have been better if we had known this novel betacoronavirus clade C, type 1?" He asks.
The new rules are for the most difficult names, Miyagishima admits. "But we think we left a big enough space for freedom. We do not want to kill the creativity of researchers completely."
Linfa Wang knows all about the difficulty of naming diseases. There are two decades, he appointed a virus and the disease it causes after Hendra, a suburb of Brisbane, Australia; he still gets angry residents complain that calls the name hurt property values. These days its strategy is to "go small." He recently appointed a new Henipavirus isolated in a neighborhood called simply Cedar Grove Cedar virus.
virologists met other sensitivities with Norwalk virus , named after a town in Ohio. the pathogen is the only species of the genus Norovirus and usually this name is used. in 2011, however, a Japanese person has requested a change because many people in Japan bear the surname Noro. the International Committee on taxonomy of viruses has recommended "Norwalk virus" instead.
the acronyms are another good solution, says Ab Osterhaus, a virologist at Erasmus MC in Rotterdam, because they keep short names (another recommendation of the WHO) and people often forget that the letters represent. But even acronyms can become controversial. in 03, officials WHO invented the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) to describe a new pneumonia spread in Asia, in part to avoid a name like "Chinese flu." SARS will not go down well in Hong Kong, however, which is officially known as Hong Kong, to the Special Administrative Region.
Leave a number of new diseases may be the only way to avoid these problems, researchers say. It precedent. Growing up in China in the late 1960s, Wang remembers that diseases had numbers. "I'm really scared of the disease Number 5," he recalls. "I do not know why, you really do not want to have a number 5. disease"
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