More than a few contemporary human infectious diseases have come to light in the past couple of years and the naming of such diseases as “swine flu” or “Spanish flu” have had unintentional negative impacts. On a conference held by the World Health Organization (WHO), assistant director-general for health security Dr. Keiji Fukuda, mentioned that identifying a particular diseases by giving them names such as “avian flu” and “Middle East Respiratory Syndrome” had unexpected and unintended repercussions because it stigmatized specific communities or economic sectors or geographical zones. This can create serious and negative consequences for the lives as well as livelihoods of people.
This may seem like a minor issue at the moment, but this really puts an undeniable impact on the people who are directly affected.
WHO recently released best practices for naming infectious diseases, particularly emphasizing the role of news media in establishing the names of diseases in day to day life .This however do not apply to already established disease names. According to the guideline drawn up by the “WHO”, a name should consist of terms which are generically descriptive based upon relevant symptoms such as neurologic syndrome, water diarrhea or respiratory disease.
The World Health Organization does not want scientists to name recently discovered diseases and ailments using any people names or locations, as the practice has proven to have severe negative impacts on those concerned. If however, the disease causing pathogen is known, then it should be included in the name e.g. salmonella.
The World Health Organization insisted that newly discovered diseases should be given normal names that are not related to any human being, country or even an animal. Spanish flu, or Middle East respiratory syndrome; names given to particular animals should also be avoided, e.g. monkey pox, swine or bird flu; and those associated to people’s names like Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and Chagas disease be avoided as well. .
Although the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) has absolute final say on what a new infectious disease is called, it’s much harder to implement when those outside the ICD and scientific community are referring to it as something else entirely. According to WHO, scenarios in which a long name has to be given and subsequently shortened into an acronym, the potential acronyms should be evaluated to ensure they also comply with these best practices.
WHO also recommended all the industries involved in the process of naming should avoid words and terms that would pin point to a specific geographic area or those which are deprecating to animals or people.
