World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus has issued a new warning about the likelihood of Disease X breaking out, telling global world leaders it is “a matter of when, not if” a new pathogen and pandemic will strike.
Tedros, who goes by his first name, told attendees at the World Government Summit in Dubai earlier his week he gave a similar warning in 2018 that a pandemic was likely to hit, and he was proven right with the outbreak of the deadly coronavirus.
Complaining that the world is still ill-prepared for a new pandemic, Tedros once again touted the urgent need for a global treaty to be agreed upon by May and dismissed suspicions of it being a WHO power grab as outlandish. He called the treaty “mission critical for humanity.”
“Today I stand before you in the aftermath of COVID-19 with millions of people dead, with social, economic and political shocks that reverberate to this day,” Tedros said.
“Although some progress has been made, like improvements in surveillance, the Pandemic Fund, building capacities in vaccine production … the world is not prepared for a pandemic.
“The painful lessons we learned are in danger of being forgotten as attention turns to the many other crises confronting our world.” Tedros said that if the world fails to learn those lessons, “we will pay dearly next time, and there will be a next time. “History teaches us that the next pandemic is a matter of when, not if,” Tedros added.
“It may be caused by an influenza virus, or a new coronavirus or a new pathogen we don’t even know about yet — what we call Disease X.”
Disease X is a hypothetical “placeholder” virus that has not yet formed, but scientists say it could be 20 times deadlier than COVID-19. About eight years ago, it was added to the WHO’s short list of pathogens for research that could cause a “serious international epidemic,” according to a 2022 WHO press release.
“As things stand, the world remains unprepared for the next Disease X, and the next pandemic,” he said. Tedros said there has been a lot of attention on Disease X lately but insisted it’s not a new thing.
“We first used the term Disease X in 2018, the same time as I spoke here at this World Governments Summit, as a placeholder for a disease we don’t even know about yet, but for which we can nonetheless prepare.”
“COVID-19 was a Disease X, a new pathogen causing a new disease. But there will be another Disease X, or a Disease Y or a Disease Z.”
