Naming the next pandemic

When I helped name SARS (on a frenzied Saturday morning), one of our chief concerns at the World Health Organization was to create a name that would not stigmatize any group or nation. The Spanish flu and the Hong Kong flu are reminders of how important a name can be. Decades earlier, I worked in San Francisco when a new disease was detected and given the name Gay Related Immune Deficiency. This was inappropriate for lots of reasons, chiefly that it misled some people to believe that infection could be acquired with casual association with a gay person and that non-gays were not at risk. HIV and AIDS are much better identifiers. SARS showed us that a benign name doesn't eliminate stigma but it can reduce it.

At WHO, I was concerned for years about the name of the next pandemic. Still, after years of wrestling with the problem, the next pandemic is without a name or even a procedure for naming the outbreak. This important job is very likely to fall to a headline writer. Which means, the next pandemic could be called the Jakarta Flu or maybe the Portland Pandemic.

Any ideas?

(BTW, I didn't do so well with SARS. After creating the name, I did a quick search and found that "SARS" would not be a problem. But I didn't search "SAR" which was how Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China was called, and Hong Kong was hard hit by the disease.)