New human diseases should be given socially acceptable names which do not offend people and countries or mention animals, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”G0BLpaHcmUCDU9P2xPzgkwsEGckPZraK”]It has produced advice for scientists and the media on choosing names.<\/p>\n
The WHO says Middle East Respiratory Syndrome and Spanish Flu are examples of what to avoid because they mention specific locations.<\/p>\n
Instead, names should contain generic terms that are “easy to pronounce”.<\/p>\n
The WHO said several new human infectious diseases had emerged in recent years and some had stigmatised certain cultures, regions and economies.<\/p>\n
Dr Keiji Fukuda, assistant director general for health security at the WHO, said: “This may seem like a trivial issue to come, but disease names really do matter to the people who are directly affected.”<\/p>\n
Barrier to trade<\/strong><\/p>\n Dr Fukuda said certain disease names had created a backlash against members of particular religious or ethnic communities.<\/p>\n They had also put up barriers to travel, commerce and trade, he added, and in some cases triggered the needless slaughtering of animals.<\/p>\n “This can have serious consequences for people’s lives and livelihoods.”<\/p>\n The WHO has listed a number of best practices for naming new diseases which have not been recognised in humans before.<\/p>\n They include using specific or generic descriptive terms if they are known, such as ‘severe’, ‘progressive’ or ‘respiratory disease’ and making names short and easily pronounceable.<\/p>\n Any acronyms for longer names should be checked, the advice adds.<\/p>\n Disease names which incite fear, include people’s names, such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, or refer to specific occupations, for example Legionnaires’ disease, should be avoided.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" New human diseases should be given socially acceptable names which do not offend people and countries or mention animals, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said. [contextly_sidebar id=”G0BLpaHcmUCDU9P2xPzgkwsEGckPZraK”]It has produced advice for scientists and the media on choosing names. The WHO says Middle East Respiratory Syndrome and Spanish Flu are examples of what to avoid […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":114849,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[15],"yoast_head":"\n