Three years ago, WHO issued a list of certain diseases that have the potential to rise to a
severe epidemic and for which we have very little or no medical countermeasures as a way to
prioritise efforts on them. However, at the end of the list is written “Disease X”. Disease X is
a concept; experts call it a “placeholder” in case a new disease emerges that is severe and
contagious enough to cause an epidemic or a pandemic.
Recently the UK has been warned by experts of the emergence of “Disease X”, an unknown
pathogen that could likely be on the scale of the Bubonic Plague.
Over the last few months, a string of infectious diseases have sprung up in the UK. These
include cases of Polio, Monkeypox, Lassa flu, and haemorrhagic fever. The origins of these
diseases in the country have been traced back to travelers that return to the UK from visits to
places like West Africa in case of Lassa fever and Central Asia in case of haemorrhagic fever.
Brexit has also caused a massive increase in non-EU immigration from Asian and African
countries. The re-emergence of polio in the UK is just the latest troubling sign that the world
is headed for a “perfect storm” of new and existing viruses raging through the population.
Two and a half years since the outbreak of Covid-19, scientists are bracing for health
catastrophes that are becoming more common, according to infectious disease expert Dr.
Anthony Fauci, due to the encroachment into forest areas to create human settlements as a
result of population growth.
“We do need to pay attention, to strengthen pandemic preparedness and maintain our
surveillance systems, because in the grand scheme of things Covid wasn’t as bad as it
potentially could have been,” Paul Hunter, Professor of Medicine at the University of East
Anglia, told The Telegraph.
Scientists have predicted the unfortunate possibility of Covid-19 among other recent
pandemics only being milder versions of what will eventually be the most prominent Disease
X. A silver lining is that experts have said that the CEPI aspired to be able to respond to the
next “Disease X” with a new vaccine in just 100 days.
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