World leaders are to discuss preparation for the next pandemic at a major Davos summit next week.
Officials from across the globe will be heading to the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Switzerland – with the risk posed by what’s known as ‘Disease X’ one of the key items on the agenda.
It comes after warnings from experts that a hypothetical new pandemic could kill 20 times more people than the recent coronavirus outbreak. It is hoped that with the correct research framework in place and enough knowledge in place on a global level, a future pandemic could be eliminated in just 100 days.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned of a potential Disease X since 2017, a term indicating an unknown pathogen that could cause a serious international epidemic.
Speaking to the WEF on its Radio Davos podcast last year, author Kate Kelland said that extensive research into already-known families of viruses would help humanity prepare and create a vaccine quickly for the the next outbreak.
Public speakers at the ‘Preparing for Disease X’ event next Wednesday include Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the WHO, Brazilian Minister of Health Nisia Trindade Lima, and Michel Demaré, chair of the board at AstraZeneca.
In their first post-pandemic meeting held in November 2022, the WHO brought over 300 scientists to consider which of over 25 virus families and bacteria could potentially create another pandemic.
The list the team came up with included: the Ebola virus, the Marburg virus disease, Covid-19, SARS, and the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). Others included lassa fever, nipah and henipaviral diseases, zift Valley fever, and zika – as well as the unknown pathogen that would cause “Disease X”.
