A UK health expert has warned that Disease X, as designated by the World Health Organization (WHO), could potentially cause a pandemic deadlier than COVID-19.
In an interview, Kate Bingham, who served as the chair of the UK’s Vaccine Taskforce from May to December 2020, compared the possible impact of this new virus to the catastrophic Spanish Flu of 1918-1919.
According to WHO, Disease X could be a new pathogen—be it a virus, bacterium, or fungus—for which there are currently no known treatments.
Expressing her concern, Ms. Bingham stated, “Let me put it this way: the 1918-19 flu pandemic killed at least 50 million people worldwide, twice as many as were killed in World War I. Today, we could expect a similar death toll from one of the many viruses that already exist.”
To tackle the threat from Disease X, “the world will have to prepare for mass vaccination drives and deliver the doses in record time,” she told.
Ms. Bingham further explained that scientists have identified 25 virus families, but there could be more than one million undiscovered variants capable of jumping from one species to another.
“In a sense, we got lucky with COVID-19, despite the fact that it caused 20 million or more deaths across the world.
The point is that the vast majority of people infected with the virus managed to recover… Imagine Disease X is as infectious as measles with the fatality rate of Ebola.
Somewhere in the world, it’s replicating, and sooner or later, somebody will start feeling sick,” said Ms. Bingham.
Ebola had a fatality rate of around 67%, and she noted that other viruses like bird flu and MERS also caused significant mortality. “So we certainly can’t bank on the next pandemic being easily contained.”
Ms. Bingham also discussed the reasons behind the increasing number of pandemics.
“The increase in outbreaks is the price we’re having to pay for living in the modern world. First, it’s increasingly connected through globalisation.
Second, more and more people are cramming into cities, where they often come into close contact with others,” said Ms. Bingham.
Viruses are also jumping from one species to another due to deforestation, modern agricultural methods, and the destruction of wetlands. WHO first mentioned Disease X on its website in May.
The organization stated that the term “represents the knowledge that a serious international epidemic could be caused by a pathogen currently unknown to cause human disease.”
The WHO started using the term in 2018, and a year later, COVID-19 began to spread across the world.
