Don’t panic! Disease X doesn’t exist yet, but it might someday. Disease Coined in 2017, the term can be used to mean a newly discovered pathogen or a known pathogen with newly acquired pandemic potential. According to the latter definition, covid-19 was the first disease X. However, in the future another disease may appear.
Why are people talking about it now?
The World Health Organization is warning world leaders about the risk of future pandemics at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting. “Some people say this could cause panic,” says WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “No. It’s happened so many times in our history that it’s better to anticipate what might happen and be prepared for it.”
What will be the next disease, X?
We don’t know – that’s why it’s called Disease X. Coronaviruses, a large group of viruses, have long been seen as prime candidates for causing new pandemics, even before the COVID-19 outbreak. That’s because the new coronavirus was not the first dangerous pathogen in this group. In 2002, another coronavirus began to spread in China. It caused a type of pneumonia called SARS, which killed about one in 10 people who contracted it, before being stopped by strict infection control measures. Another more deadly coronavirus, called MERS, occasionally occurs and causes pneumonia that kills one in three people infected. However, recent research suggests that it will be more difficult for SARS and MERS to cause new pandemics. This is because almost everyone in the world now has antibodies against the virus that causes Covid-19, and these have partial resistance to most other pathogens in the coronavirus family. This is because it seems to provide protection.
Are there any other candidates with pandemic potential?
Many diseases, some well-known and some less well-known, can pose a global threat. Influenza strains have caused several global pandemics in the past, including the 1918 Spanish flu, one of the deadliest diseases in history. A highly virulent avian influenza virus is currently sweeping the world, and birds can sometimes infect mammals. causing mass deaths. Just this week, he was named as the culprit behind the deaths of 17,000 baby elephant seals in Argentina last October. There are other sources of infection, including Ebola, which causes severe bleeding, and Zika, a virus transmitted by mosquitoes that can cause babies to have smaller heads if infected during pregnancy. WHO updated its report List of pathogens with the highest pandemic potential In 2022.
What can be done to stop disease X?
There’s some good news. The COVID-19 pandemic may have made it easier to stop future Disease X outbreaks. COVID-19 has spurred the development of new vaccine designs, including vaccines that can be quickly reused to target new pathogens. For example, this has led to the emergence of mRNA-based vaccines. The formula contains a short piece of genetic material that causes the body’s immune cells to produce the coronavirus “spike” protein, but it can be updated to allow the cells to mass-produce a different protein by simply rewriting the mRNA sequence. There is a possibility that it can be done.
Is there anything else I can do to fight disease X?
Mr Tedros said countries needed better early warning systems for emerging diseases and health services needed to be more resilient to unexpected spikes in demand. “When hospitals exceed capacity, [with covid]we lost a lot of people because we couldn’t manage them. There wasn’t enough space and there wasn’t enough oxygen. ” Tedros said health services must be able to scale up response capacity on demand to avoid the same thing happening when Disease X occurs. Fortunately, they can make such preparations without knowing exactly what disease X is. “Disease X is a placeholder,” he says. “You can prepare for any illness.”
