Do I need to worry about Disease X? Here's what experts say about the threat posed by unknown future pandemics.The ominously-named “Disease X” isn’t an actual disease (yet). But it’s gaining attention online as experts look beyond COVID-19 to future public health threats.
What's happening
Disease X is a term that was created years ago, and the World Health Organization started including it on its list of priority diseases in 2017 alongside familiar diseases like Zika and Ebola. It’s used as a placeholder for new, yet-to-be-discovered threats, with WHO writing that “Disease X represents the knowledge that a serious international epidemic could be caused by a pathogen currently unknown to cause human disease.”
COVID-19, caused by the then-new SARS-CoV-2 virus, was an example of a Disease X when it first emerged at the end of 2019.
Do I need to worry?
“It is definitely something to worry about, and it is not a matter of if we're going to have another pandemic — it's a matter of when,” Pablo Penaloza-MacMaster, an assistant professor of microbiology-immunology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, tells Yahoo Life of the threat posed by undiscovered pathogens and future pandemics.
There was more than a 100-year gap between the COVID-19 pandemic and the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, but experts say it likely won’t be that long between pandemics in the future, for a number of reasons:
Population growth: A larger, denser global population gives pathogens more susceptible hosts and more opportunities to jump from person to person.
Which civilization is most responsible for human overpopulation?:
In 1800, when the Industrial Revolution began, there were approximately 1 billion people on Earth. Continued agricultural expansion and extraction of fossil fuels and minerals led to rapid global economic growth and, in turn, population growth in the 19th century.
Continuing with the article:
More travel: People are traveling farther and with more ease than ever before — which facilitates the spread of diseases.
Which civilization invented planes, trains, and automobiles? Continuing:
Global warming: Climate change is worsening the spread and severity of infectious diseases and could also lead to the reemergence of ancient viruses as permafrost melts.
Which civilization is most responsible for climate-change? Further:
Deforestation and encroachment on wildlife: By destroying and invading animals’ natural habitats, we’re blurring the boundaries between humans and animals — giving viruses and other pathogens that previously only infected animals more opportunities to jump to human hosts.
Which civilization is most responsible for deforestation on a scale hitherto unknown in all of human history?
Hint:
Back to the article:
“We've learned the hard way from COVID-19 the ramifications of not being prepared,” Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr, an epidemiology professor at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health and lead of the New York City Pandemic Response Institute, tells Yahoo Life. “So I think it behooves us to anticipate and prepare for a potential next pandemic that may come down the line.”...
Entire article:
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/do-i-need-to-worry-about-disease-x-200620896.htmlNext pandemic: Disease X is 20 times deadlier than covid-19 l WION ORIGINALSDisease X is 20 times deadlier than covid-19
Disease X News | Disease X: Can This Potential Threat Be Deadlier Than Covid? | English News | N18VThe next pandemic could take 50 million lives said Dame Kate Bingham, who chaired the UK's Vaccine Taskforce saying that it might already be on its way and that Covid-19 was not that lethal. The new pandemic has been dubbed Disease X by World Health Organisation (WHO) and Bingham says it could be 20 times deadlier than Coronavirus. Bingham told Daily Mail, “The world will have to prepare for mass vaccination drives and deliver the doses in record time…Imagine Disease X is as infectious as measles with the fatality rate of Ebola (67 per cent). Somewhere in the world, it's replicating, and sooner or later, somebody will start feeling sick.”