Monkeypox is to be renamed amid fears it could be racist according to the World Health Organisation. The name links the disease to Africa - from where it originates - and has been described as "discriminatory and stigmatising".
The international community has a long-standing practice of no longer naming diseases based on their origin - as Ebola and West Nile virus were in the past. President Donald Trump tried to ignore the rule by calling Covid the Chinese Virus or Kung Flu.
The WHO proposes calling monkeypox MPXV.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the WHO is "working with partners and experts from around the world on changing the name of monkeypox virus, its clades and the disease it causes".
There have been almost 500 cases of the potentially fatal disease so far in the UK.
The World Health Organisation is to convene an emergency committee of experts to determine if the expanding monkeypox outbreak that has mysteriously spread outside Africa should be considered a global health emergency.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he had decided to convene the emergency committee on June 23 because the virus has shown “unusual” recent behaviour by spreading in countries well beyond parts of Africa, where it is endemic.
“We believe that it needs also some coordinated response because of the geographic spread,” he told reporters.
Declaring monkeypox to be an international health emergency would give it the same designation as the Covid-19 pandemic and mean that the WHO considers the normally rare disease a continuing threat to countries globally.
The UK said on Monday that it had 470 cases of monkeypox, with the vast majority in gay or bisexual men. British scientists said last week they could not tell if the spread of the disease in the UK had peaked.
The meeting of outside experts could also help improve understanding and knowledge about the virus, Dr Tedros said, as the WHO released new guidelines about vaccinating against monkeypox.
The UN health agency does not recommend mass vaccination, but advises the “judicious” use of vaccines. It said controlling the disease relies primarily on measures like surveillance, tracking cases and isolating patients.
Last month, a leading adviser to the WHO said the outbreak in Europe and beyond was likely to be spreading through sex at two recent raves in Spain and Belgium.
Scientists warn that anyone, regardless of sexual orientation, is susceptible to catching monkeypox if they are in close physical contact with an infected person or their clothing or bed sheets.
The WHO has been working with partner countries to create a mechanism by which some vaccines for smallpox – a related disease – might be made available to countries that are affected, as research continues into their effectiveness against the new outbreak.
Dr Tedros said more than 1,600 cases and nearly 1,500 suspected cases have been reported this year in 39 countries, including seven where monkeypox has been reported for years.
A total of 72 deaths have been reported but none in the newly affected countries, which include the UK, Canada, Italy, Poland, Spain and the US.
The outbreak in Europe and elsewhere marks the first time the disease has been known to spread among people who have no travel links to Africa.
