In June of last year, British health experts reportedly urged the UK government to be prepared for ‘Disease X’ following reports of poliovirus detection in sewage samples in London, monkeypox, Lassa fever, and avian flu in recent years.
Days after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Covid-19 no longer a global emergency, effectively ending a pandemic that killed at least 7 million lives globally, experts are concerned that a new ‘Disease X’ will unleash an even deadlier pandemic.
The World Health Organization defines Disease X as the recognition that a severe international pandemic could be caused by a pathogen that is currently unknown and could trigger human disease. The word was first used in 2018.
According to a New York Post report, medical professionals throughout the world are pleading for more funding to support the surveillance of and research into potential pandemic agents to prevent and stop an outbreak of Disease X.
According to the authors of the article published in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, “The COVID-19 pandemic was not the initial one to wreak havoc on the globe and it will not be the last.”
What is disease X?
According to Reuters, British medical experts reportedly recommended the UK government to prepare for “Disease X” in June of last year as a consequence of claims that poliovirus cases, monkeypox, Lassa fever, and avian flu had recently been identified in sewage samples in London.
According to medical experts quoted by The Mirror, “Disease X” may be around the corner as we enter a new pandemic period.
The WHO originally released a list of diseases that could start a “deadly pandemic” in 2017 and then carried out a prioritization exercise the following year.
The list currently contains COVID-19, Ebola virus disease, Marburg virus disease, Lassa fever, Middle East respiratory syndrome, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Nipah, Zika, and the most recent addition to the list, “Disease X.”
What kind of disease could X have?
The next Disease X, according to some public health experts, will be zoonotic, meaning it will start in domestic or wild animals before spreading to infect people, according to a New York Post report. Up until now, zoonotic diseases like COVID-19, HIV/AIDS, and Ebola have all caused devastating outbreaks.
According to the research, some people think that bioterrorism may be to blame for the upcoming pandemic.
The authors of a 2021 article in the scientific journal Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology asserted that it is also impossible to rule out the potential of a synthetic pandemic infection.
According to the authors, it has been identified as a global catastrophic risk that the introduction of such germs, whether through laboratory errors or as an act of bioterrorism, might result in a disastrous Disease X.
The paper also suggested that “zombie” viruses, which have lain dormant in permafrost or similar frozen landscapes for centuries but are now liberated by a warming environment, could be another potential source.
What is the World Health Organization’s warning?
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus issued a warning on Wednesday, saying the world must brace itself for the next pandemic, which might be even deadlier than Covid-19.
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The WHO chief’s warning comes at a time when Covid-19 instances are beginning to level off around the world.
He allegedly stated that the threat of another variety evolving that causes new outbreaks of disease and death, as well as the threat of another pathogen emerging with even deadlier potential, persists.
