In early February 2020, the World Health Organization announced that the disease caused by the new coronavirus already had an official name: COVID-19. The new name was taken from the words “corona”, “virus” and disease , while 19 represents the year in which it emerged (the outbreak was reported to WHO on December 31, 2019). This choice is very careful, since references to both the place of origin of the disease and the animal or species in which it arises are avoided, and discriminatory behaviors are avoided . Many people already knew the new disease as “Wuhan pneumonia”, something that was causing pejorative connotations with respect to the inhabitants of this city. Something similar happened with H1N1, which was originally called swine flu and caused indiscriminate slaughter of pigs in many corners of the world.
Therefore, the name of the new disease causing the pandemic should not include geographic locations, people’s names, names of animals or foods, or references to a particular culture or industry.
WHO names diseases
The names of the diseases are intended to facilitate discussion about their prevention, spread, transmissibility, severity, and treatment. WHO’s role is to prepare for and respond to human diseases, which is why it is in charge of giving the official name to diseases in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD).
ICTV names viruses
The name of viruses is another matter, since they are based on their genetic structure, and the aim is to facilitate the development of diagnostic tests, vaccines and drugs. The virus that causes COVID-19 is called SARS-CoV-2 (type 2 coronavirus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome). This name was chosen because the virus is genetically related to the coronavirus responsible for the 2003 SARS outbreak, although they are two different viruses.
The body dedicated to baptizing these microbes is the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV), which was founded in 1966 in Moscow. It is formed by a group of virologists who unify the name of these infectious agents worldwide. For example, when the AIDS virus was discovered, it was christened “human TIII-cell leukemia virus” or “lymphadenopathy-associated virus,” until the committee introduced the name HIV, human immunodeficiency virus. . Before naming an agent, it is classified by its chemical and physical properties. Outside scientific circles, viruses are named for the symptoms or disease they produce or for the place where they were discovered, but we have already commented that it is inadvisable to use these names because they may have pejorative connotations or that they induce discrimination against original people. of said places.
The ICTV tries to achieve a universal classification that can function as the standard that regulates the formal description of new strains and the ordering of their location within the classification scheme. It works so that the nomenclature and classification rules are as close as possible to the traditional standard of the classification of organisms, using some of their categories, suffixes that indicate the taxonomic rank and applying italics to the names of the taxa.
