Published January 21, 2024
The World Health Organization (W.H.O.) called on countries to sign its pandemic treaty in order to prepare for “Disease X” at Wednesday’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
W.H.O. Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus shared his hopes that the international community would reach a pandemic agreement by May to fight against this “common enemy.”
While scientists have identified several possible “high-risk” animal viruses such as bird flu, hantavirus, and monkeypox, “Disease X” is used as a placeholder to refer to a potential pathogen that could be 20 times deadlier than the coronavirus.
A November 2022 W.H.O. press release revealed that Disease X “could cause a serious international epidemic.”
In meetings held that fall, W.H.O. researchers began studying different pathogens to determine which could be the elusive Disease X in a process that includes “both scientific and public health criteria, as well as criteria related to socioeconomic impact, access, and equity.”
During the WEF summit, chaired by the organization’s founder Klaus Schwab, Ghebreyesus said that coronavirus was the first Disease X, but people should be prepared for another.
“There are things that are unknown that may happen, and anything happening is a matter of when, not if, so we need to have a placeholder for that, for the diseases we don’t know,” the health official said.
“We lost many people [during the coronavirus pandemic] because we couldn’t manage them,” Ghebreyesus said. “They could have been saved, but there was no space. There was not enough oxygen. So how can you have a system that can expand when the need comes?”
READ FULL ARTICLE
SOURCE: www.breitbart.com
RELATED: WHO calls for world pandemic treaty to prepare for deadly ‘Disease X’
Published January 21, 2024
World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus has called on countries to sign on to the health organization’s pandemic treaty so the world can prepare for “Disease X.”
Ghebreyesus, speaking in front of an audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday, said that he hoped countries would reach a pandemic agreement by May to address this “common enemy.”
Disease X is a hypothetical “placeholder” virus that has not yet been formed, but scientists say it could be 20 times deadlier than COVID-19.
It was added to the WHO’s short list of pathogens for research in 2017 that could cause a “serious international epidemic,” according to a 2022 WHO press release.
Ghebreyesus said that COVID-19 was the first Disease X, but it’s important to prepare for another pandemic.
“There are things that are unknown that may happen, and anything happening is a matter of when, not if, so we need to have a placeholder for that, for the diseases we don’t know,” Ghebreyesus said.
“We lost many people [during COVID] because we couldn’t manage them,” Ghebreyesus said at the global confab. “They could have been saved, but there was no space. There was not enough oxygen. So how can you have a system that can expand when the need comes?”
He said that a shared response via the treaty would help the world better react to another outbreak.
READ FULL ARTICLE
SOURCE: www.nypost.com
RELATED: What is Disease X and why is it in the news?
The World Health Organization uses the term “Disease X” to refer to an infection with the potential for causing the next epidemic – or a new global pandemic
Published January 17, 2024
What is Disease X?
Don’t panic! Disease X doesn’t exist yet – but it might one day. Disease X is the label that the World Health Organization uses to refer to some currently unknown infectious condition that is capable of causing an epidemic or – if it spreads across multiple countries – a pandemic. The term, coined in 2017, can be used to mean a newly discovered pathogen or any known pathogen with newly acquired pandemic potential. By the latter definition, covid-19 was the first Disease X. But there could be another in the future.
Why are people talking about it now?
The World Health Organization has been warning global leaders about the risks of future pandemics at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting, held this week in Davos, Switzerland. “Some people say this may create panic,” says WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “No. It’s better to anticipate something that may happen – because it has happened in our history many times – and prepare for it.”
What might the next Disease X be?
We don’t know – that is why it is called Disease X. The coronaviruses, a large group of viruses, were long seen as a prime contender for producing a new pandemic, even before the covid-19 outbreak. That is because the novel coronavirus wasn’t the first dangerous pathogen from this group. In 2002, a different coronavirus started spreading in China. It caused a form of pneumonia called SARS that killed around 1 in 10 of those it infected, before it was stopped by strict infection control measures. Another, even deadlier coronavirus called MERS occasionally breaks out, causing a pneumonia that kills 1 in 3 of those infected. However, recent work suggests SARS and MERS would have a harder time triggering a fresh pandemic because almost everyone in the world now has antibodies to the virus that causes covid-19 and these seem to give partial protection against most other pathogens in the coronavirus family.
READ FULL ARTICLE
SOURCE: www.newscientist.com
