‘Humanity has three great enemies: fever, famine and war. Of these, by far the greatest, by far the most terrible, is fever.” Thus spake the revered physician Sir William Osler, and thus quoteth Dr Chris van Tulleken at the start of this hour-long trip into terror, entitled Disease X: Hunting the Next Pandemic. Buy your bunker and pack your go-bag as you watch.
Van Tulleken is an associate professor at University College London, a practising doctor in infectious diseases and a tremendously affable sort, committed to making complex medical matters accessible to a wide audience. This makes his documentary about where and what the next pandemic virus will be (“It’s out there, trying to get into the human population every day”) a strangely jolly while utterly comfortless watch. I guess a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine – and contemplation of an existential threat – go down.
