The subcommittee is aware of the mounting discontent over the name monkeypox. It is sympathetic to the concerns about stigma, McInnes said, and it is not unmoved by the complaint that monkeypox is a misnomer. Monkeys aren’t the natural host — the reservoir — of the virus, they are just the first animal that was seen to be suffering from the disease.

But the true reservoir host isn’t known. And there are a number of species of viruses that are named in the way monkeypox virus is, after the first animal species seen to have been preyed upon by the virus in question.

Moreover, the committee is concerned that dropping the monkeypox name could disconnect future scientific papers about the virus and the disease from the more than 50 years of science already in the literature.

“By no means have we come to a final decision yet, but certainly I would say the majority of the committee was in favor of retaining the name monkeypox, just in terms of the danger of losing out on all the early scientific, epidemiological research that is out there. And obviously that’s quite a lot,” McInnes said.