When did monkeypox become ‘mpox’?

Writing about monkeypox in The Spectator in May 2022, Douglas Murray repeated a formula he had put forward in 2020, explaining ‘the problem with us humans as a species’: ‘Someone always shags a monkey.’

Now an outbreak of new, improved monkeypox is upon us, and the first thought has been to avoid stigmatising monkeys. It has been renamed mpox. The Oxford English Dictionary, a vasty hoard where words can lie undisturbed for more than a century, was quick to comment: ‘Mpox was originally named monkeypox because it was first seen in laboratory monkeys. It was later identified in rodents and other small mammals, various wild primates, and humans. After a global outbreak of the disease in humans, starting in 2022, the name mpox was chosen to comply with World Health Organisation guidelines for the naming of new diseases (published in 2015), which recommend the avoidance of words that might stigmatise geographical regions, ethnic groups, species of animal, etc.’