The UK is not ready for Disease X which will kill 20 times as many people as Covid, according to the director general of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. The term Disease X was created by the WHO in 2018 to describe an unknown disease that could spark a future pandemic.
Speaking at the World Government Summit in Dubai, Ghebreyesus said: "As things stand, the world remains unprepared for the next Disease X, and the next pandemic. If it struck tomorrow, we would face many of the same problems we faced with COVID-19.
"The painful lessons we learned are in danger of being forgotten as attention turns to the many other crises confronting our world. But if we fail to learn those lessons, we will pay dearly next time."
He added: "History teaches us that the next pandemic is a matter of when not if."
Experts believe that it could result in 20 times more deaths than the coronavirus pandemic and it is on the WHO's shortlist of priority diseases, along with viruses like SARS, Ebola and Zika. Covid has so far killed around seven million people.
Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert, lead investigator at the Pandemic Sciences Institute, University of Oxford, said Disease X is one of many future pandemic threats that scientists are looking into. Scientists think Disease X could be caused by a virus that jumps from animals to humans. Dr Gilbert added that the unknown germ could likely be 'something we haven't yet discovered'.
The WHO believes Disease X will likely emerge in tropical, low or middle-income countries, particularly those already affected by climate change.
Professor Dame Gilbert says the Pandemic Sciences Institute is trying to understand “more about how viruses emerge, developing vaccines and treatments, analysing data and surveillance of infectious diseases and researching the policy and ethical factors around pandemic response.”
In August, over 200 scientists began work at a new cutting-edge vaccine research lab in Wiltshire. The Vaccine Development and Evaluation Centre aims to find ways to respond faster to future pandemics. It took 362 days to develop the Covid-19 vaccine, but the team at the centre hopes to reduce this time to just 100 days.
