Scientists being 'concerned' about a virus being associated with Africa that originated from Africa, with the only two known clades of its existence coming from Africa, is indicative of the petty semantics of contemporary science, cwtremo writes.
The World Health Organization declared it would rename the monkeypox virus after scientists feared that its name and African origins would result in a stigma. It's a story that sounds more like a comedy sketch than real life.
What's next, renaming chickenpox for fear of offending the people in countries that butcher poultry in wet markets? "By supporting a non-discriminatory and non-stigmatizing classification, we can encourage African and other researchers in low- and middle-income countries to advance genomic surveillance, share sequence data, and minimize negative impacts," the scientists declared.
Yet the history of the monkeypox virus details why it is appropriately named. It was first discovered in a monkey at a research facility in Denmark in 1958. And pertaining to its African origins, the first known human case was identified in 1970, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
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