Don’t call it mad cow disease: The origins of disease names
WHO recommends a naming convention that would shun animal-specific names, such "swine flu."
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The Zika virus, which can be spread by mosquitoes, was first observed in a monkey captured in the Zika Forest in Uganda.
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Ebola is named for a river in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where the disease was first diagnosed.
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Lou Gehrig of the New York Yankees has become synonymous with amyotrophic laterals sclerosis (ALS), the a progressive neurodegenerative disease from which he suffered.
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Lyme disease gets its name from where it was first diagnosed, in Old Lyme, Connecticut.
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Neurologist Alois Alzheimer identified the illness that bears his name.
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West Nile is a mosquito-borne virus names after the location of the first isolated patient, in the West Nile district of Northern Uganda.
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Mad cow disease got its name in the 1980s from the ranchers who first noticed their cattle stumbling around.