COVID-19. The phrase stands for "Coronavirus Disease 2019," where CO stands for Corona, VI stands for Virus, and D stands for Disease. 19 indicates the year of discovery.
At a press conference held at WHO headquarters, Tedros announced that "we are now naming this disease 'COVID-19'", which is caused by the new coronavirus that broke out in 2019. Abbreviation for the disease that causes it.
Tedros explained: “Under the same guiding principles of WHO, the World Organization for Animal Health and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, we must find a solution that does not involve geographical locations, animals, individuals or groups of people. , which is easy to pronounce and related to the disease.”
Tedros stressed that naming the disease is important to avoid using other inaccurate or stigmatizing names, and also to protect the future. Provide a standard format for other coronavirus outbreaks that may arise.
Extended information:
In December 2019, "Pneumonia of unknown origin" appeared in Wuhan, China. On January 7, 2020, it was confirmed as a "new coronavirus" by whole-genome sequencing ", on January 12, the World Health Organization tentatively named it "2019-nCoV" (2019 new coronavirus). 2019 represents the year the virus was discovered, n represents new type, and CoV is the English abbreviation of coronavirus.
Because "2019-nCoV" is long and difficult to pronounce, it cannot be pronounced smoothly, causing a lot of inconvenience. Many foreign media and the public even use other names. There have been many lessons learned from past global infectious disease epidemics.
The H1N1 virus epidemic in 2009 was called "swine flu". As a result, Egypt slaughtered all the pigs in the country, triggering protests by local Copts who eat pork. In fact, human-to-human transmission of this disease is not Through pigs; MERS in 2015 also caused controversy, because "Middle East Respiratory Syndrome" led to discrimination against Middle Eastern residents in the outside world.
So, when an epidemic occurs, it is crucial to give it an appropriate name as soon as possible.
In fact, as early as 1967, the international community established a specialized organization, the International Committee on Classification of Viruses, which is responsible for classifying and naming various viruses. In the past, this committee mainly determined from biology which category a virus should be classified into, and thus determined what to call it.
However, with the development of the times, linguistic and semantic factors have also been taken into consideration, and 7 principles for naming newly discovered diseases were set in 2015:
1. Durable Available.
2. Avoid or refuse to use names that may cause errors or ambiguities.
3. Avoid unnecessary name creation.
4. The geographical location should not be included in the middle of the name.
5. The name does not contain a person’s name.
6. The name does not contain the name of an animal or a certain food.
7. The name does not point to a specific culture or industry.
People's Daily Online-WHO named the new coronavirus "COVID-19"
People's Daily Online-The new coronavirus was named "COVID-19"