Mpox is the new name public health officials are using for monkeypox.

The World Health Organization announced last week it would begin using “mpox” as the preferred term for monkeypox because of “racist and stigmatizing language online, in other settings and in some communities.”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention quickly followed suit.

“We welcome the change by the World Health Organization. We must do all we can to break down barriers to public health, and reducing stigma associated with disease is one critical step in our work to end mpox,” said U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.

Mpox cases in Oregon

Until May, monkeypox, a disease that is thought to originate in animals, was not known to trigger large outbreaks beyond central and west Africa.

Outside of Africa, nearly all cases have been in gay, bisexual or other men who have sex with men. Scientists believe monkeypox triggered outbreaks in Western countries after spreading via sex at two raves in Belgium and Spain. Vaccination efforts in rich countries, along with targeted control interventions, have mostly brought the disease under control after it peaked in the summer.

In Africa, the disease mainly affects people in contact with infected animals such as rodents and squirrels. The majority of monkeypox-related deaths have been in Africa, where there have been almost no vaccines available.

WHO said it was concerned by the “racist and stigmatizing language” that arose after monkeypox spread to more than 100 countries.

The decision by WHO, the international body responsible for naming diseases, was made after meetings with world leaders who expressed concern for this language and requested a name change. WHO consulted with experts, countries and the public before making its decision, citing concerns the original name of the decades-old animal disease could be construed as discriminatory and racist.

Based on those meetings, the organization announced, it now recommends that mpox will become a preferred term, replacing monkeypox, after a transition period of one year. This serves to mitigate the concerns raised by experts about confusion caused by a name change in the midst of a global outbreak. It also gives time to complete the International Health Related Classifications update process and to update WHO publications.

Updating a name usually takes years, WHO wrote, but the process was accelerated in this instance.

The disease was first called human monkeypox in 1970 after the virus that causes it was found in captive monkeys in 1958. That was nearly 50 years before WHO adopted its best practices in naming diseases.

Those practices state “new disease names should be given with the aim to minimize unnecessary negative impact of names on trade, travel, tourism or animal welfare, and avoid causing offence to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic groups.”

Separately, the federal government announced it planned to end in January the public health emergency it declared earlier this year after an outbreak of mpox infected more than 29,000 people across the U.S.

Mpox cases have plummeted in recent weeks, with just a handful of new infections being reported every week in the month of November, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At the height of the outbreak, over the summer, hundreds of people were being infected weekly.