Why does the new corona virus never have a name like SARS or MERS?

Despite having infected over 9,800 people, killing at least 213 people, the corona virus that first appeared in Wuhan has no official name and caused confusion on the headlines.

Since its first appearance in Wuhan, China, late last year, the newly discovered corona virus has infected more than 9,800 people, killing at least 213 people, making travel across China. stalled. All this happened, and the virus still has no official name.

The temporary name of the virus - 2019-nCoV - sounds neither ear-catching nor easy to read. The headline often calls it "Wuhan corona virus" or even just "Chinese virus".

But those names attach viruses to specific places, going against current practice. The virus is now simply referred to as coronavirus , a broad term that includes many other viruses.

According to Atlantic, in the midst of an outbreak, choosing a name doesn't seem to be the most pressing issue, but whatever name is chosen, or attached to an unofficial virus, can eventually pull off. long.

Epidemic associated with geography

In the 20th century, virus discoverers often named their discoveries geographically: the Spanish flu; Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever; Lyme, for a town in Connecticut; Ebola , for a river nearby.

These names forever bind these localities to diseases that may or may not actually originate there. In 2009, "swine flu" caused Egypt to kill all pigs, although the virus did not spread through pigs. The National Pork Council in America also hates the name.

A mother and son go to a checkpoint in Hubei Province.(Photo: Reuters)

No one likes to be associated with a notorious virus, so naming it can be a rather difficult political process.

For new viruses, the World Health Organization is using the interim neutral name 2019-nCoV - 2019 for the year the virus first appeared and 'nCov' for the "new coronavirus". ('Corona' relates to the crown shape found in coronaviruses, a group that includes MERS and SARS but usually only infects animals).

But the time in the name "2019-nCoV" can easily be confusing when the disease continues to break out in 2020 and especially if it comes back in the coming years.

Previously, experts in the research group of ICTV (International Committee for Virus Classification) worked with WHO and local authorities to officially name the new viruses.

This time, for 2019-nCoV, they will work in accordance with the WHO guidelines established in 2015 to address the risky naming process.

Rule and experience naming viruses

The rules do not encourage names by geographic location, people, animals, cultural indicators and "terms that cause undue fear", such as "unknown", "death", "deadly" or "pandemic".

They encourage names that describe symptoms (such as breathing, spongiform encephalitis, defects), affected groups (adolescents, pediatrics, women), time (acute temporary). ), severity, seasonality (winter, summer), and even arbitrary identifiers (Alpha, beta, a, b, I, II, III, 1, 2, 3).

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (right) and WHO Health Program Head Michael Ryan at a press conference after the WHO emergency committee discussed whether new coronaviruses constitute a medical emergency. International or not, in Geneva, January 30.(Photo: AFP / Getty).

These descriptive names are intended to facilitate word of mouth, so the guide also recommends evaluating offensive abbreviations.

For example, SARS is an acronym for severe acute respiratory syndrome, consistent with the criteria of the descriptive term. But "SARS" is also close to "SAR" - an acronym for Special Administrative Region, Hong Kong's full name.

"Hong Kong is heavily influenced by SARS and does not like the fact that a virus originating from China appears with a name referring to the origin of Hong Kong," Helen Branswell wrote in STAT.

The last outbreak that scientists have to name a new coronavirus is MERS , or respiratory syndrome in the Middle East. It was first identified in a sample from Saudi Arabia in 2012 and the country's abbreviation was included first.

The Saudi government is not happy about that. It took another five months for the ICTV team to consult with the WHO and the Saudi government to agree on "MERS" . (Although WHO now cites MERS as an example of what is not being used because the geographic area is still in the name.

Raoul de Groot, who led the team when naming MERS, said he hoped the process would be faster this time, as the 2019-nCoV outbreak has spread quickly and created headlines.

For de Groot, who has been studying coronavirus for 40 years, this is surprising. When he started researching them, coronaviruses were really just a branch of little interest.

These viruses are known to infect animals, but only with SARS, MERS and now 2019-nCoV, the unnamed coronavirus, they are already associated with humans.

"If I have a choice, I want my field of study to be of little interest , " he said. The obscure scientific term has now become a familiar word, even though the official name is still pending.

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