What About Corona Various
Recently, World Health Organization officials faced a similar political twist, when the coronavirus was first identified in Wuhan, China, continues to be a threat. the threat is growing.
Just weeks after it was first discovered and began to spread, it has been assigned a variety of impressive names, such as "Wuhan flu", "Wuhan coronavirus", "coronavirus", "to-2019", and even a long name, "Wuhan Seafood Market pneumonia virus".
On February 11, the World Health Organization (WHO) had a press conference, announcing the official name of the disease caused by the new coronavirus as' Covid-19 (short for 'disease caused by the Coronavirus strain.') year 2019 cause ').
But before the press conference ended, the International Commission on Virus Classification again published an article that proposed naming the nature of the virus as: 'Severe acute respiratory distress syndrome caused by coronaviruses. 2 ', abbreviated as Sars-CoV-2.
This name is a reflection of research showing that the new virus that is circulating is closely related to the Sars virus.
Curiously, a WHO spokesperson told Science magazine they wouldn't use the name out of concern that the word "Sars" would cause further panic.
Meanwhile, some media still call it "coronavirus", and others consider the disease name and virus strain name the same, using both concepts.
Have you been confused yet?
The formal naming sequence for a virus strain usually has the following steps: once it is confirmed that a new strain has been discovered, responsible scientists will come up with some suggestions for naming it and submit Suggestions to the International Commission on Virus Classification. This committee will choose one of the suggestions and publish the official name.
Hard
The problem is that a virus can have two names - just like we call ourselves humans, even though our species is officially known as Homo sapiens.
Unlike animal naming, there is no formal general process for naming a virus.
Ideally, a name that combines the two, to avoid problems like the situation we are currently facing with the coronavirus. But this usually doesn't always happen.
The name of the city of Wuhan where the disease was first discovered e will be associated with the new coronavirus forever.
One reason it's so hard to get us all to agree is that, despite today's 7,111 languages in the world, comprising millions of words, it's incredibly hard to find an option without offending. who's that.
Using the wrong word, the name can disparage an entire region, destroy an industry or even cause a diplomatic crisis.
"This is a complicated thing that people rarely think carefully," said Jens Kuhn, a highly toxic virus expert at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
"Naming always drives people crazy in different ways. Many things in life are controversial, but when it comes to naming, people immediately jump to their feet."
The longer it takes people to name a virus, the more likely it is that the virus will be tied to the most common name - in the same way, that H1N1 flu is often referred to as swine flu.
Humans have a very strong instinct to want to name things - people have even started naming machines used to build 1,000-bed emergency field hospitals. for coronavirus patients in Wuhan, China, after a live broadcast of the construction scene became a hit and went viral.
According to Kuhn, the best way to make sure the world uses the same name for a particular virus is to name it after the virus strain.
So what are the characteristics of an ideal name?
First, it has to be unique. Calling the new virus the Wuhan coronavirus would cause problems, explained Kuhn, a member of the International Commission on Virus Classification.
There exist at least 17 viruses similar to this "Wuhan", from 'cricket virus' to 'mosquito virus', and most are not dangerous to humans.
Any names that associate these strains of viruses with human outbreaks can complicate the problem and confuse research.
The name should also be short and appealing.
"I find the name Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (Mers) odd," says Kuhn, admitting he struggled to remember the order of these acronyms himself.
And if a name is too vague, the public will not bother to use it.
Do you want something that sounds as good and concise as 'measles' disease?. Measles is a great term."
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the name offends as few people as possible.
Health officials fear that linking the new coronavirus so closely to the Sars epidemic will confuse the community
During the 2009 swine flu outbreak, pig producers protested that calling swine flu would lead to huge losses in their industry because the public mistakenly believed pork could transmit the virus.
In fact, although it is a swine virus, it is thought to have been transmitted to humans by another animal - possibly migratory birds. The pig itself is not a problem.
However, Egypt ordered the removal of many swine herds from the country, some even being buried alive. It was the worst-case scenario caused by the naming: the term "swine flu" has caused a frenetic, frenetic killing.
Likewise, when an outbreak is geographically named, that name is often wrong.
Back in 1918, when World War I was about to end, a terrifying new flu virus emerged.
The "Spanish flu" has affected almost every cave and alley in the world, from the frozen wilderness of the Arctic to the islands of the South Pacific. Only a handful of secluded settlements and shelters are unharmed.
Many countries hide the news, out of concern that it could affect public morale at a critical moment in a war. ?
But Spain does not hide. When the first cases emerged, the Spanish newspapers responsibly informed what was going on.
There is ample evidence that the epidemic did not start here, but as one of the first countries to admit the infection, Spain is mistakenly believed to have been the site of the disease as "Spanish flu Nha ".
In some cases, naming accidents can become catastrophic.
Back in the 1980s, the virus we now call HIV was originally called 'gay-related immunodeficiency' (Grid).
Not only is it an insulting name, but it also hinders efforts to control the disease.
It was once deduced that the virus only infects gay white men, and that has made it difficult for Congress to pass important precautionary laws.
Although the latest coronavirus has now been named, losses arising from different names have probably already occurred.
Believed to be clearly related to the city of Wuhan, with thousands of headlines being published in global media over several weeks, it is hard to imagine any other name for this virus to the public. In addition to the name "Wuhan virus" - perhaps time will answer this question.
To avoid repeating similar problems in the future, various alternative naming schemes have been proposed.
One idea is to name the virus after the person, just like naming storms. Imagine you call your boss to say: "I can't go to work because I'm so tired of Steve fever".
But using your name to name a natural disaster is one thing, and naming a virus that can cause terrible harm is another.
Consider the norovirus, a virus that causes vomiting and diarrhea and is very susceptible to infection (just 10 individuals of the virus can invade you to be infected).
In 2011, a Japanese man filed a complaint against the name with the International Commission on Virus Classification, because Noro is a common Japanese surname - there are around 19,369 people with the Noro surname in the country. this.
The organization tried to correct the mistake and proposed to change the name to "Norwalk virus", but to no avail - people were used to using the name norovirus.
Another idea is to name by numbering. But again, this is problematic.
"Many studies show that the human mind isn't really good at remembering numbers," says Kuhn.
In addition to other inconveniences, he points out that a small number of mistakes do far more harm than linguistic mistakes. For example, if the word 'measles' is typed or incorrectly spelled as 'gravel', one can still guess, but if you call the name by number, typing or writing a wrong number will lead to a complete meaning completely different.
New temporary treatment facilities and field hospitals have been built in Wuhan, China, in just a few days to prepare new coronavirus patients.
To avoid all of these potential pitfalls, WHO has published several guidelines, which suggest avoiding human names, animal names, or places entirely - names will simply describe the symptoms that the virus does. cause.
But surprisingly, even this system is capable of insulting.
"Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome" is a name purely from the book.
Yet according to their report "The Social Structure of Sars Translation: Research on the Health Media Crisis," Hong Kong officials continue to use the term "atypical pneumonia" to describe the outbreak. translated in 2002 for a while, after noticing the sad similarity between the Sars name and "Hong Kong SAR" - that is, the acronym for Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Hong Kong Special Administrative Region).
If the designation "Sars-CoV-2" is used, the land of Hong Kong may not be satisfied.
However, not everyone hates being involved with the virus; In some cases, naming yourself for the virus can be a pleasure and mentality.
Kuhn knows some patients have fervently asked for their name to name a virus - considering it a small consolation prize after all their suffering.
We have a long history of naming illnesses after discoverers or patient names, for hundreds of years, from "Buschke-Lowenstein's cancer" to "Cushing's boil"; no matter how serious the symptoms of the disease are, it is always an honor to have their name given to them.
No matter what we name a virus, what we name it will not stop the virus from spreading.
Perhaps it would be better for us to put the nasty virus naming arguments aside, and instead focus on virus control
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