A top World Health Organization (WHO) official has warned that the world isn’t ready for another pandemic, amid concerns about the future risk of Disease X.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director of the WHO, said that the planet is “unprepared” for a Disease X outbreak or future pandemics.
Speaking at the World Government Summit in Dubai, the director-general urged the population to learn from previous pandemics or risk paying the price in the future.
“Exactly six years ago, I said the world was not prepared for a pandemic and expressed my concern at that time that a pandemic could happen any time,’ he told listeners. “Less than two years later, the Covid-19 pandemic struck, and the world is still not prepared today.
He added: “The painful lessons we learned are in danger of being forgotten as attention turns to many other crises confronting our world.
“But, if we fail to learn those lessons, we will pay dearly next time – and there will be a next time. The cycle of panic and neglect is beginning to repeat,” he warned.
Mr Ghebreyesus’s stark warning came as leaders and experts gathered to discuss the potential of an unidentified disease that could impact the world in future years.
Referred to as Disease X, discussions around this hypothetical disease have gathered pace in recent months.
Medics are reportedly anxious that a new pandemic could be caused by the virus, and are developing vaccines to prepare for the possibility.The Nottingham Post has reported that the WHO feels it “is more of a probability rather than possibility” that it will hit. However, work on vaccines has been ramped up recently as experts prepare for future health threats.
What is Disease X?
Scientists are wary about the threat of a virus that could turn into another pandemic.
They have put together a threat list of animal viruses that are capable of infecting humans and could in future spread rapidly around the world. However, it isn’t known which of them will break through and trigger the next pandemic – this is why it has been referred to as “Disease X”.
Professor Dame Jenny Harries, the head of the UKHSA, told Sky News: “What we’re trying to do here is ensure that we prepare so that if we have a new Disease X, a new pathogen, we have done as much of that work in advance as possible.
“Hopefully we can prevent it [a pandemic]. But if we can’t and we have to respond, then we have already started developing vaccines and therapeutics to crack it.”
Around the world, countries have pledged a total of $1.5 billion (£1.15 billion) to help scientists prepare for Disease X. The UK government has pledged £160 million ($210 million), alongside pledges from Japan, Germany, Australia, the United States and Norway as well as the Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust.
Will another pandemic happen?
In 2021, a leading scientist predicted that another pandemic-causing could potentially be around the corner and it is a matter of when, not if.
Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, said that while pandemic flu is at the top of the list for outbreaks to be concerned about, there is a whole range of other viruses to be aware of.
Prof Woolhouse said that in 2017, he and some colleagues got the World Health Organisation to add something called Disease X to its list of priority diseases.
He explained: “We thought that the next emerging pandemic might be a virus that we don’t even know about yet – quite frankly we thought it was the most likely scenario.”
Speaking independently, he said: “You could use the phrase ‘it is when, not if’.
“We can’t put a handle on when, of course. The precise mechanism by which a virus comes out is always extremely unpredictable.
“You can never predict precise events, so you have to do it on sort of statistical grounds probability.”
