‘African’ swine fever: case for better name

I have been following with great attention through the media, as so many others, the African swine fever (ASF) saga; how people in white suits have been surrounding pig farms in several parts of Korea, and have been slaughtering thousands of animals. The “African” part of the name intrigued me.

But I found nowhere how this contagious disease struck South Korean farms. Then we learned that a wild boar from the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) was probably the cause of the deadly infection.

I immediately reflected: So, why isn’t it called the “DMZ swine fever,” or the “North Korean swine fever,” because it seems the origin might be the northern neighbor? Names count, because they can bring undue stigmatization to peoples and places. I then did a little research.

The ASF is a large double-stranded DNA virus of the Asfarviridae family, found in Africa and first described, according to Wikipedia, in 1921. Since its first spread during the 1950s in Europe, no continent has been free from the disease except Australia. It is an illness unique to pigs, domestic or wild, with specific characteristics, highly contagious, and with no vaccine against it.

Because its origins have been traced to the African continent, conventionally it has always been called African swine fever, even if a contagion can be traced from somewhere else. It reminded me of the Spanish flu, which killed millions around the world between 1918 and 1920. It did not come from Spain at all.

At the end of World War I, censorship was very strong among warring parties, and no government was willing to draw attention to that mortal influenza pandemic. The exception was Spain, which was a neutral country in the conflict, and became the first country to report extensively about it. Spain became a perfect scapegoat, and the name stuck — even if it might have spread from the U.S. or France, or even from China, according to historians.

It also reminded me of the 2009 pandemic flu that was detected in Mexico in April that year, as a new strain of influenza that could severely affect animals and also humans. It was first called the Mexican flu.

Some European countries petitioned the European Union to shut down all direct flights from Mexico, which would have caused a huge economic damage. That did not happen, because there were other more effective ways to control the pandemic.

Mexico also asked the World Health Organization (WHO) to stop calling the disease Mexican flu, because it damaged the country’s reputation. It was officially labeled as “H1N1/09” by the WHO, and is today popularly known as (A)H1N1, or simply the 2009 H1N1 pandemic.

In this era of globalization, viruses and their mutations travel from one country or continent to another quickly before being detected. Calling them by a place name is not only wrong, it develops a bad reputation and stigmatization.

I asked the ambassador of Gabon to Korea and dean of the African group of ambassadors, Carlos Victor Boungou, what he thought about the ASF.

His answer was very clear: “The image of Africa has been tarnished.” No later than last week, at their monthly meeting, the African ambassadors discussed the matter. They might raise it to the official level, for a good reason: It is time to change misleading or damaging names.