Enlarge image
Micrograph of the monkeypox virus
Photo: Niaid / ZUMA Wire / IMAGO
Brutal attacks on monkeys are on the rise in Brazil.
"We have noticed that the number of incidents in which animals are pursued, stoned or even poisoned is increasing," said Dener Giovanini, coordinator of the National Network to Combat Wildlife Trade (Renctas), the German Press Agency.
"This is because there is a lack of information in Brazilian society" about the fact that the monkeys are not carriers of the virus and therefore do not pose a danger to humans.
Violence against the animals has increased sharply recently in view of the increase in cases of monkeypox in Brazil.
A number of battered and poisoned monkeys were brought to the Sao José do Rio Preto Zoo, eleven of which died, according to a statement from the city in the state of Sao Paulo.
A video showed how the animals suffered.
There have also been repeated attacks on monkeys in Brazil during yellow fever outbreaks.
Such irrational reactions are quite common.
Behind this is the erroneous assumption that one can protect oneself from a new danger in this way.
Because of the swine flu in 2009, millions of pigs were slaughtered in many countries.
How a disease is named has specific effects on the people or animals affected.
When the new type of corona virus from Wuhan in China spread around the world at the beginning of 2020, it was not only the then US President Donald Trump who spoke of the “Wuhan” or “China virus”.
In many places, people who were mistaken for Chinese were excluded
The WHO has been pressuring for weeks to change the name of monkeypox.
But aren't such catchy names better than combinations of letters and numbers like H1N1 for swine flu or Sars-CoV-2 for the corona virus?
"What is easy is not necessarily necessary," says Richard Neher from the Biozentrum at the University of Basel to the German Press Agency.
He signed a call in June to find neutral names for monkeypox subgroups and not talk about "West Africa" or "Congo Basin" groups.
This gives the wrong impression that the recent outbreaks, mainly in Europe, the USA and Brazil, have something to do with Africa, it says.
That is discriminatory and stigmatizing.
The more than two dozen virologists criticized the fact that photos of African patients were often provided.
"The problem with geographical designations is that they often lead to disadvantages for the places after which the pathogens are named," says Neher.
For example, avoiding trips to the regions.
In addition, countries that monitor diseases well and discover and describe new virus variants, for example, would be penalized if the new variant was then named after the country.
The legendary Spanish flu of 2018, for example, was first reported by Spain, but the first cases occurred earlier in the United States, as reported by the US Society for Microbiology (ASM).
The fact that terms like swine flu or the Wuhan virus quickly caught on is human, wrote Susan Hardy, lecturer in social sciences on the University of Sydney website.
"Fear needs a name, and naming something suggests that something is being done." It's also about looking for scapegoats.
Since 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) has had guidelines to prevent disease names from having a negative impact on trade, travel, tourism or animal welfare, or potentially pillorying cultural, social, regional or ethnic groups.
The monkeypox virus is so named because it was first detected in monkeys in Denmark in the 1950s.
It could also have been called the Danish virus, like the Marburg virus, so named because it was identified in the Hessian city in the 1960s.
In the case of monkeypox, it is now clear that monkeys – like humans – can become infected.
But natural hosts are rodents.
In the recent spread, the virus is transmitted through close human-to-human contact and is unrelated to monkeys.
This contribution is part of the Global Society project
Expand areaWhat is the Global Society project?
Under the title "Global Society", reporters from
Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe
report on injustices in a globalized world, socio-political challenges and sustainable development.
The reports, analyses, photo series, videos and podcasts appear in a separate section in SPIEGEL's international section.
The project is long-term and is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF).
A detailed FAQ with questions and answers about the project can be found here.
AreaWhat does the funding look like in concrete terms?open
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) has been supporting the project since 2019 for an initial period of three years with a total of around 2.3 million euros - around 760,000 euros per year.
In 2021, the project was extended by almost three and a half years until spring 2025 under the same conditions.
AreaIs the journalistic content independent of the foundation?open
Yes.
The editorial content is created without the influence of the Gates Foundation.
AreaDo other media also have similar projects?open
Yes.
With the support of the Gates Foundation, major European media outlets such as The Guardian and El País have set up similar sections on their news sites with Global Development and Planeta Futuro respectively.
Did SPIEGEL already have similar projects? open
In recent years, SPIEGEL has already implemented two projects with the European Journalism Center (EJC) and the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: the "OverMorgen Expedition" on global sustainability goals and the journalistic refugee project "The New Arrivals ", within the framework of which several award-winning multimedia reports on the topics of migration and flight have been created.
Expand areaWhere can I find all publications on the Global Society?
The pieces can be found at SPIEGEL on the Global Society topic page.
abe, dpa, afx
but