The World Health Organisation (WHO) announced in Geneva on Tuesday that "COVID-19" will be the official name of the novel coronavirus.
The print edition of The Macau Post Daily reported the name change on its front page today.
The WHO had earlier given the virus the temporary name "2019-nCoV acute respiratory disease" and the National Health Commission (NHC) in Beijing earlier this week said it was temporarily calling it "novel coronavirus pneumonia" (NCP).
"We now have a name for the disease and it's COVID-19," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday, according to an AFP report.
AFP quoted Tedros as saying that "co" stands for "corona", "vi" for "virus" and "d" for "disease", while "19" was for the year, as the outbreak was first identified on December 31, 2019.
Tedros also said the name had been chosen to avoid references to a specific geographical location, animal species or group of people in line with international recommendations for naming aimed at preventing stigmatisation.
The Macau Post Daily will from now on refer to the disease by its WHO-approved name.
