Monkeypox will be renamed 'mpox', health chiefs confirmed today after a push to find a 'non-discriminatory' term.
World Health Organization (WHO) officials promised to create a new name for the disease this summer after a global surge of cases.
Before then, cases of the rash-causing virus were generally confined to countries in Africa. Outbreaks elsewhere were imported, sporadic and contained quickly.
But a wave earlier this year, which has yet to be extinguished, sparked alarm because it showed it was spreading naturally between people in dozens of countries, including the UK.