The World Health Organization has issued best practices for naming new human infectious diseases and called upon scientists, national authorities and the media to follow the new practices.
Often times, people outside of the scientific community end up giving diseases common names that negatively affect nations and economies and have serious consequences for peoples' lives and livelihoods.
Inappropriate disease names that use geographic regions, people's names or the names of animals — such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, Spanish flu, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, swine flu, monkey pox and legionnaires — can provoke a backlash against members of particular religious or ethnic communities, create unjustified barriers to travel, commerce and trade and trigger needless slaughtering of food animals.
According to the WHO report, "It is important that whoever first reports on a newly identified human disease uses an appropriate name that is scientifically sound and socially acceptable."
The international organization suggests naming diseases using generic descriptive terms based on the condition's symptoms, as well as more specific descriptive terms, like the pathogen that causes the disease, how the disease manifests, who it affects, its severity or its seasonality.
Terms that should be avoided include:
- Geographical locations
- People's names
- Animal species or food
- References to specific cultures, populations, animals, foods, industries or occupations; or
- Terms that may trigger undue fear
To read the full WHO report on best practices, click here.
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