The World Health Organization says it is holding an open forum on renaming monkeypox after some critics raised concerns that the name could be seen as discriminatory and stigmatizing. The WHO said the decision came after a meeting with the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which helps identify best practices for naming new human diseases to “avoid offending any cultural, social, national , regional, occupational or ethnic groups and minimize any adverse effects on trade, travel, tourism or animal welfare’. In a statement on Friday, the UN health agency said it had also renamed two families, or clades, of the virus, using Latin numbers instead of geographic regions, to avoid stigmatization. MONKEYPOX: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE VIRUS – AND HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF The version of the disease formerly known as the Congo Basin will now be known as Clade one or I and the West African clade will be known as Clade two or II. The WHO said the new names for the clades will take effect immediately, while a new name for the disease and virus is being worked on. The WHO said anyone wishing to submit a name suggestion can do so on its website. The decision comes after a group of scientists recommended an “urgent” name change in June, calling the current name “discriminatory and stigmatizing”. The new name, they suggested, would minimize the “negative impact on nations, geographies, economies and people and this takes into account the evolution and spread of the virus”. Scientists proposed a neutral name that explains the evolution of the virus. “In the context of the current global epidemic, the continued reference and naming of this virus as being African is not only inaccurate, but also discriminatory and stigmatizing. The most obvious manifestation of this is the use of photographs of African patients to depict smallpox lesions on mainstream media in the global North,” they said in a joint statement. NEW YORK GOVERNOR: Monkey pox is an ‘EXTREME DISASTER’ The Centers for Disease Control notes that the source of monkeypox is unknown, although the virus was named in 1958 when two cases of a smallpox-like illness occurred in colonies where monkeys were kept for research. Prior to 2022, monkeypox outbreaks were almost always linked to international travel to countries where the disease is common or via imported animals. The first human case was in 1970. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP “What people need to be very clear about is the transmission that we’re seeing is human-to-human transmission. It’s close contact transmission. So the concern should be about where it’s being transmitted in the human population and what people can do to protect themselves from transmission They certainly shouldn’t attack any animals,” WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said on Tuesday. Sarah Rumpf is a digital production assistant at Fox News. You can reach her on Twitter at @rumpfsarahc