WHO on “disease X”: The world should prepare, not panic
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The world must prepare for future unknown diseases, including “disease X”.
This was announced by the head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, writes The Guardian.
The head of the WHO explained that the idea of the so-called “disease X” is not new – the international organization has been using it since 2018. He explains this by the fact that, along with the well-known MERS, Zika and Ebola viruses, there is always a possible outbreak of the X disease.
The first such upheaval for the world was COVID-19, which can be called the first “disease X” and it “may recur”.
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“It is better to anticipate what may happen and prepare for it. We should not meet such events unprepared“, Gebreesus emphasized.
Such preparedness, he said, includes an early warning system, as well as systems that can be scaled up when there is an urgent need for more medical facilities and staff.
Ghebreyesus drew attention to claims of possible panic among the population, however, in his opinion, this is wrong. At the same time, he added that the WHO was preparing for the appearance of a virus similar to COVID-19 even before the pandemic.
What is “disease X”?
“Disease X” is not a mysterious virus that is already spreading and killing millions of people, but a conventional name for a potential infection that could potentially cause a pandemic.
According to the head of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci, the “X” in the name stands for “unexpected”.
In 2017, after the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa, WHO added “disease X” to a short list of pathogens considered a priority for research. From 2014 to 2016, this disease caused 11 thousand deaths.
The current list includes:
- COVID-19;
- Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever;
- Ebola virus disease;
- Marburg virus disease;
- Lassa fever;
- Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS-CoV);
- severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV),
- Nipah fever and other henipaviruses;
- Rift Valley fever;
- Zika fever;
- and “disease X”.
Unlike the other diseases on the list, “disease X” is not an actual pathogen – it is a medical metaphor.
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