The world's attention has started to shift to Davos where world leaders are assembling to participate in the World Economic Forum discussion over a possible pandemic outbreak due to 'Disease X'. The World leader at WEF will be discussing concerns about a possible future pandemic, which could spread through Disease X. Disease X, which is still a hypothesis is believed to be 20 times deadlier than COVID-19. Hence, in order to discuss the possible vaccine and medicines to stop the Disease X outbreak, the World Economic Forum's latest discussion can turn out to be a massive one. Now, the question arises what is Disease X, and how has it flagged a major warning around the world? Below is all about Disease X-
What is Disease X?
As per reports, Disease X is a placeholder name adopted by the World Health Organization in February 2018 to represent a hypothetical and unknown pathogen that could cause a future pandemic. The placeholder name i.e. Disease X was adopted to ensure that planning was sufficient. When COVID erupted, discussions were held to keep it in the Disease X segment. However, experts believe that Disease X will be 20 times deadlier than COVID-19.
Coming back to WEF Disease X meeting, WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, along with health experts and industry leaders, will lead a panel of discussion. As per reports, the focus is on developing platform technologies, including vaccines and drug therapies, to be ready for a more severe pandemic.
For the unversed, preparations for Disease X began after the 2014–2016 Ebola epidemic in West Africa. Following that, the WHO created a priority list of diseases, including COVID-19, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, Ebola virus disease and Marburg virus disease, Lassa fever, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and SARS, Nipah and henipaviral diseases, Rift Valley fever, Zika, Disease X.
The final goal for the latest World Economic Forum 2024 Disease X meeting is to fasten up research and development to avoid delays witnessed during the Ebola outbreak, where 11,000 lives were lost due to a lack of timely interventions. Reports suggest that researchers at the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), are actively working on rapid response vaccine platforms to develop new immunisations within 100 days of identifying a potential pandemic, under a $3.5 billion plan.
Amid the Disease X meeting, US radio host Alex Jones shared his video in which he said that Disease X will be another virus that will be used to control people around the world. "Now, what is disease X? That's a name for a disease that never existed. And if you talk to the virologists and the experts, they say that's not known for hundreds of years. And most of the diseases that they have recently found, they find later in bodies they dig up, existed before. And it's very rare to find a new disease. So when you hear disease X, they mean the laboratory-made synthetic viruses, gain of function operations. So now they are in a crescendo with corporate media, the UN, the WF, Bill Gates, the new world order, saying that the release of a new virus is imminent and is going to happen," said Alex Jones in his video