Epidemiologists are renaming the disease Alaskapox out of fear that the name of the illness may hamper tourism and stigmatize the state.
Alaskapox, now called Borealpox, gained media spotlight in January following the abrupt death of an elderly man in the remote Kenai Peninsula after he was hospitalized with the disease last November.
Joseph McLaughlin, Alaska’s state epidemiologist who discovered the virus, told the magazine Science, “It became clear that the name Alaskapox could be stigmatizing to the state.”
Alsakapox was discovered in 2015 when a woman in Fairbanks was treated for a mysterious lesion. She recovered quickly from the condition.
McLaughlin coauthored several papers about the virus since the first case, including identifying its genetic sequence. By the end of 2023, only five very mild cases of the infection had been identified in humans, all
Read more…
