Disease X:
The World Health Organisation (WHO) emphasised the urgent need for global preparedness against a potential new pandemic, referred to as ‘Disease X’
- Disease X is referred to as a hypothetical pathogen or threat that can cause a major pandemic in future.
- It could be a new agent, a virus, a bacterium, or a fungus without any known treatment.
- The term coined by scientists and the World Health Organization could be any of the 25 families of viruses that have the capability to cause illness in people.
- Disease X was included in the WHO’s updated Blueprint list of diseases back in 2018.
- Scientists are of the opinion that Disease X could be 20 times more deadly than SARS-Covid virus that caused pandemic recently.
- It represents an illness which is currently unknown but could pose a serious microbial threat to humans in the future.
