The World Health Organization (WHO), has warned about disease X, an unknown pathogen that will cause a serious global pandemic in the future.

A disease called disease  X has been on the World Health Organization’s Blueprint list, since 2018.

During the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting about the Disease X, it was described as being a potential threat following the COVID-19 pandemic. it focused on being prepared to avert a similar disaster that followed COVID-19 in 2020.

What is Disease X?

The word Disease X in theory “represents the knowledge that a serious international epidemic could be caused by a pathogen currently unknown to cause human disease”.

The General director of World Health Organisation Tedros Ghebreyesus,  stated the importance of preparing for another global health pandemic after COVID-19 saying, “There are things that are unknown that may happen, and anything happening is a matter of when, not if, so we need to have a placeholder for that, for the diseases we don’t know. We lost many people [during COVID] because we couldn’t manage them. They could have been saved, but there was no space. There was not enough oxygen. So how can you have a system that can expand when the need comes?”

“The pandemic agreement can bring all the experience, all the challenges that we have faced and all the solutions into one,” Ghebreyesus said. “That agreement can help us to prepare for the future in a better way This is a common global interest, and very narrow national interests should not come into the way.” Here we explain what Disease X is and how we may best prepare for another global pandemic.

1:How can Disease X be stopped in the future?

The COVID-19 pandemic has given an insight into dealing with health emergencies on such a large scale, and Disease X may not be any different. The coronavirus outbreak has accelerated the development of novel vaccines – including those that can be quickly reused and updated to target new pathogens.

2:How can Disease X be prevented?

“When hospitals were stretched beyond their capacity [with Covid], we lost many people because we could not manage them. There was not enough space, there was not enough oxygen.

To prevent the same thing from happening when Disease X strikes, the WHO boss  says “health services must be able to expand their capacity quickly – and on demand”.