WHO warns of potential future pandemics, including ‘Disease X’, a pathogen currently unknown to cause human disease. Covid-19 presented the globe with unprecedented challenges, resulting in thousands of fatalities. Scientists raced to develop a vaccine to combat the virus, which has spread rapidly since its breakout in 2019. After three years, a sense of normalcy has returned, but experts are concerned about the next outbreak, particularly in light of World Health Organization (WHO) chief Margaret Chan’s recent declaration that the world must prepare for the next pandemic, which might be “even deadlier” than Covid-19.
Following this remark, there is fresh interest in the list of “priority diseases” on the health organization’s website. The names of the diseases that could cause the next fatal pandemic are on a shortlist. While most of the diseases are well-known – Ebola, SARS, and Zika – the final item, dubbed ‘Disease X,’ has sparked anxiety.
According to the WHO website, the term “represents the knowledge that a serious international epidemic could be caused by a pathogen currently unknown to cause human disease”.
It could be a new agent, such as a virus, bacterium, or fungus, with no recognized treatments. The word was first used by the WHO in 2018. Covid-1 began to spread over the world a year later.
“It is not an exaggeration to say that there is potential of a Disease X event just around the corner,” Pranab Chatterjee, a researcher at the Department of International Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, told The National Post.
“The recent spate of H5N1 bird flu cases in Cambodia is just a case in point,” he added.
WHO identifies potential future pandemic pathogens
The phrase has sparked debate around the world, with many specialists predicting that the next Disease X will be zoonotic, similar to Ebola and Covid-19. Others speculated that the infection could have been generated by humans.
“The possibility of an engineered pandemic pathogen also cannot be ignored,” said the authors of a 2021 article in the journal Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology.
Marburg virus, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, Lassa fever, Nipah and henipaviral infections, Rift Valley fever, and Middle East respiratory syndrome are among the other priority diseases on the WHO list. For the time being, health experts urge enhanced surveillance and additional cash to research countermeasures.