If youve been seeing monkeypox in the news recently you might have seen pictures of the condition on darker skin.

Though the virus is now evident in other parts of the world, monkeypox has become synonymous with African countries, which is why a new name is being considered for the condition.

The World Health Organization has said it is looking to rename the virus due to the connotations and assumptions that it is an African disease.

It comes after a group of scientists signed a paper stating an urgent need for a non-discriminatory and non-stigmatizing moniker used to identify the virus.

The team of 29 experts are now calling it hMPXV and advocate for a speedy decision and adoption of a new name.

The disease was first called monkeypox as it was detected in the lab monkeys in 1958. Though it has been identified in wild monkeys in Africa, rodents are thought to be the cause of infection in humans in endemic regions.

Scientists now say that calling it monkeypox and referring to it as African is not only inaccurate but also discriminatory and stigmatizing.

In the paper released last week, the experts wrote: There is an increasing narrative in the media and among many scientists that the present global outbreak is linked to Africa or West Africa, or Nigeria.

Further, the use of geographical labels for strains of MPXV, specifically, references to the 2022 outbreak as belonging to the West African or Western African clade, strain, or genotype.

The WHOs director-general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said the organization is working with partners and experts from around the world on changing the name of the monkeypox virus, its clades and the disease it causes.

We will make announcements about the new names as soon as possible, he added.