The novel coronavirus got an official name: COVID-19 (Image via Siasat)

WHO names the novel coronavirus 'COVID-19'

Alfonsus Adi Putra
Business & Industry
Medical and Health
Feb 13, 2020
2178
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced the official name of the novel coronavirus on Tuesday. It gave the name “COVID-19”. Besides the name, the WHO also said that despite being a global threat, there is a realistic chance to stop it from taking more tolls.

Speaking in Geneva, chief of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom, confirmed the name. The name is an abbreviation. “Co” stands for “Corona”, “Vi” for “Virus”, “D” for “Disease”, while “19” is for the year when the disease broke out on New Year’s Eve.

About 400 scientists took part in the two-day international meeting in Geneva on the handling of COVID-19. The WHO planned to send an advance team to Wuhan, Hubei Province, this week to examine the epidemic.

Adhanom said that the WHO avoids giving any geographical, animal, or group of people references in the name, preventing stigmatization. Previously, the WHO called it “2019-nCoV Acute Respiratory Disease”; China’s National Health Commission called it “Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia” (NCP).

The case where a disease’s name could be used to stigmatize a country or ethnic group happened when the WHO named Ebola, Zika, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), and Spanish Flu. A major confusion also occurred when the WHO called the H1N1 as “swine flu” even though the disease spread between humans, not pigs. The name inflicted major damage on the pork industry.

Currently, COVID-19 had killed more than 1,000 people and infected over 42,000 across 25 countries.

Source: https://bit.ly/2UMi4Se

Medical , Health , Disease , Outbreak , Pneumonia , Pulmonary , Coronavirus , COVID-19