The World Health Organisation (WHO) has issued a warning about an even deadlier virus known as ‘Disease X’ just as the devastating Covid-19 pandemic, which claimed millions of lives, is coming to an end.
At a recent World Health Assembly meeting in Geneva, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organisation (WHO), issued a warning regarding this outbreak.
Tedros warned that ‘another epidemic can come at any time, which can spread a terrible disease and also kill a large number of people’ during this discussion. To deal with it, we must be prepared as a group.
WHAT IS DISEASE X?
Disease X is a term rather than a real illness. It might be the worst illness. The WHO uses the placeholder phrase ‘Disease X’ to refer to a disease that develops from a human infection but is as of yet unidentified by medical research. Scientists are ignorant of ‘Disease X’, an illness that has the potential to develop into a devastating epidemic in the future.
‘Disease X’ was first used by WHO in 2018. Later, Covid-19 took the place of ‘Disease X’. The next time an epidemic is identified, the current name of the sickness, ‘Disease X’, will be replaced by the new name of the illness.
IS IT DANGEROUS?
Disease X will emerge as a deadly disease in the coming times, the WHO chief has said already. That’s why people need to be alert from now on in view of their health.
Experts believe that the next Disease X will be zoonotic. Ebola, HIV/AIDS and Covid-19 were zoonotic outbreaks. However, no accurate prediction can be made about Disease X at this time.