Infectious disease physician Peter Chin-Hong joins LiveNOW’s Austin Westfall to explain why world leaders are already preparing for the next imaginable global health risk, known as “Disease X. “
Attendees at the World Economic Forum in Davos will talk about the option of a virus much tougher than COVID spreading around the world.
The hypothetical virus, dubbed Disease X by the World Health Organization (WHO), has not yet formed, but scientists and participants at the global convention say they will talk about the potential pathogen so they can prepare well in case it occurs.
“With new warnings from the World Health Organization that an unknown ‘disease X’ can lead to 20 times more deaths than the coronavirus pandemic, what new efforts are needed to prepare fitness systems for the demanding situations ahead?A page detailing the prestige of the assembly on the WEF website.
The consultation will be led by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, who oversaw the organization’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as Nisia Trindade Lima, Brazil’s Minister of Health, and Michel Demaré, Chair of the WHO’s Board of Directors. pharmaceutical giant and vaccine manufacturer AstraZeneca.
“Disease X,” a reserved call made through the WHO to a theoretical virus that has yet to form, was added to the WHO’s short list of pathogens for studies in 2017 that could cause a “severe foreign epidemic,” according to a 2022 report. Study. WHO press release. Other viruses added to the now-updated list include severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Ebola and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS).
COVID-19, caused by a novel coronavirus, an example of disease X and also added to the WHO list. A novel virus is a virus that has never been discovered in humans in the past.
“Targeting priority pathogens and virus families for research and development of countermeasures is essential for a fast and effective epidemic and pandemic response,” Dr Michael Ryan, the executive director of the WHO’s health emergencies program, said in the 2022 press release.
“Without significant R&D (research and development) investments prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, it would not have been possible to have safe and effective vaccines developed in record time.”
FILE – A healthcare worker collects a nasal swab sample from a person at a drive-thru testing site. (Photo by Varuth Pongsapipatt/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
The WHO said that by marking those pathogens as a priority, it can outline preparedness roadmaps, knowledge gaps and study targets, as well as drug treatments and diagnostic tests.
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“Where appropriate, target product profiles will be developed, informing developers of the desired specifications for vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostic tests,” he said.
“Disease X represents the wisdom that a serious foreign outbreak can be caused simply by a newly unknown pathogen that has the potential to cause human disease,” the WHO says on its website.
For example, according to Bloomberg, only 326 days passed from the publication of the genetic series of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to the authorization of the first COVID vaccine, thanks in part to the work done since 2017 in preparation for the disease. X. Now, groups such as the coalition for innovations in preparation for epidemics (CEPI) are supporting rapid response vaccines platforms that could expand new vaccines within a hundred days after the appearance of a virus with pandemic potential as part of a plan of $3. 5 billion. .
Scientists don’t yet know what the next deadly virus might be or how it might form.
“This concept [of Disease X] was one of the lessons we learned from this [COVID] pandemic,” Dr. Thomas Russo, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Buffalo Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, told The Independent.
“As humanity breaks down those barriers [between humans and other species] through animal markets and deforestation, we want continued monitoring and studies and advancement of biosecurity around the world. “
Disease X could also turn out to be a new pathogen not yet known even among animals, he warned.
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Meanwhile, Monica Crowley, a former deputy secretary of the Treasury, said participants in the WEF assembly would possibly have more sinister brain targets related to Disease X.
“Just in time for the election, a new contagion that will allow them to bring into force a new WHO treaty, go back into lockdown, limit relaxed speech, and destroy more freedoms,” Crowley wrote in X.
“Does that sound far-fetched? Also what happened in 2020. When your enemies tell you what they’re making plans for and what they’re making plans for, they. And be prepared. “
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