The Geneva-based World Health Organisation(WHO) has given a new name to the disease, Covid-19, which was announced late on Tuesday Feb 11,2020
WHO said it had given a new name to the illness that has triggered an international public health emergency, infecting nearly 400 more people in 24 countries.
The name “COVID-19” does not make any reference to a place or animal to avoid stigmatisation.
“We had to find a name that did not refer to a geographical location, an animal, an individual or group of people, and which is also pronounceable and related to the disease,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said while announcing it
What considerations does the WHO take into account while naming new human infectious diseases?
The WHO, in consultation and collaboration with the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), has identified the best practices for naming new human diseases, “with the aim to minimize unnecessary negative impact of disease names on trade, travel, tourism or animal welfare, and avoid causing offence to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic groups”
These best practices apply to those new diseases that can be classified as an infection, syndrome, or disease of humans; a disease that has never been recognised before in humans; has potential health impact and in those cases where no disease name is established in common usage
Significantly, as per the WHO, the assigning of an “appropriate” disease name is necessary by those who first report a new human disease, especially given the rapid and global communication through social media and other electronic means. In case an inappropriate name has started circulating, the WHO may assign an interim name and recommend its use
Furthermore, names that are assigned by the WHO may or may not be approved by the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) at a later stage. The ICD, which is also managed by the WHO, provides a final standard name for each human disease according to standard guidelines that are aimed at reducing the negative impact from names while balancing science, communication and policy.
What are WHO’s best practices for disease naming?
The best practices include using generic descriptive terms such as respiratory diseases, hepatitis, neurologic syndrome, watery diarrhoea and using specific descriptive terms that may indicate the age group of the patients and the time course of the disease, such as progressive, juvenile or severe.
Further, in case the causative pathogen is known, it should be used as part of the disease name with additional descriptors such as the year when the disease was first reported or detected. For example, novel coronavirus respiratory syndrome. The names should also be short (rabies, malaria, polio) and should be consistent with the guidelines under the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) Content Model Reference Guide
Additionally, the best practices also include advice on what the disease names should not include, such as the geographic location where it was first reported. For example, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, Spanish Flu, Japanese encephalitis and Lyme disease. Disease names should also not include people’s names (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Chagas disease), the species or class of animal or food (swine flu, monkeypox etc.), cultural or occupational references (miners, butchers, cooks, nurses etc.) and terms that incite “undue fear” such as death, fatal and epidemic
WHO said it had given a new name to the illness that has triggered an international public health emergency, infecting nearly 400 more people in 24 countries.
The name “COVID-19” does not make any reference to a place or animal to avoid stigmatisation.
“We had to find a name that did not refer to a geographical location, an animal, an individual or group of people, and which is also pronounceable and related to the disease,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said while announcing it
What considerations does the WHO take into account while naming new human infectious diseases?
The WHO, in consultation and collaboration with the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), has identified the best practices for naming new human diseases, “with the aim to minimize unnecessary negative impact of disease names on trade, travel, tourism or animal welfare, and avoid causing offence to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic groups”
These best practices apply to those new diseases that can be classified as an infection, syndrome, or disease of humans; a disease that has never been recognised before in humans; has potential health impact and in those cases where no disease name is established in common usage
Significantly, as per the WHO, the assigning of an “appropriate” disease name is necessary by those who first report a new human disease, especially given the rapid and global communication through social media and other electronic means. In case an inappropriate name has started circulating, the WHO may assign an interim name and recommend its use
Furthermore, names that are assigned by the WHO may or may not be approved by the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) at a later stage. The ICD, which is also managed by the WHO, provides a final standard name for each human disease according to standard guidelines that are aimed at reducing the negative impact from names while balancing science, communication and policy.
What are WHO’s best practices for disease naming?
The best practices include using generic descriptive terms such as respiratory diseases, hepatitis, neurologic syndrome, watery diarrhoea and using specific descriptive terms that may indicate the age group of the patients and the time course of the disease, such as progressive, juvenile or severe.
Further, in case the causative pathogen is known, it should be used as part of the disease name with additional descriptors such as the year when the disease was first reported or detected. For example, novel coronavirus respiratory syndrome. The names should also be short (rabies, malaria, polio) and should be consistent with the guidelines under the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) Content Model Reference Guide
Additionally, the best practices also include advice on what the disease names should not include, such as the geographic location where it was first reported. For example, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, Spanish Flu, Japanese encephalitis and Lyme disease. Disease names should also not include people’s names (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Chagas disease), the species or class of animal or food (swine flu, monkeypox etc.), cultural or occupational references (miners, butchers, cooks, nurses etc.) and terms that incite “undue fear” such as death, fatal and epidemic
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