COVID-19, according to experts in the United Kingdom. In the backdrop of the ongoing battle against COVID-19, healthcare professionals are now bracing themselves for the ominous arrival of “Disease X,” a term coined by the World Health Organization.
Drawing parallels with the catastrophic Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-1920, experts are issuing a solemn caution regarding the potential gravity of the emerging threat known as “Disease X.” They anticipate that “Disease X” carries the ominous potential to inflict a death toll that surpasses the coronavirus by a staggering factor of 20.
The year 2020 bore witness to the relentless expansion of the COVID-19 pandemic, which tragically claimed the lives of more than 2.5 million individuals across the globe. In a conversation with the Daily Mail, Kate Bingham, former chair of the UK’s Vaccine Taskforce, expressed her apprehension that “Disease X” could pose a significantly graver peril than COVID-19.
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Disease X can lead to 50 million fatalities
Experts have projected that the toll exacted by “Disease X” could reach a chilling 50 million fatalities, echoing the haunting specter of the 1918-19 influenza pandemic. This earlier pandemic, etched in history as one of the deadliest, claimed a minimum of 50 million lives worldwide, a toll surpassing even the casualties of World War I.
Bingham stressed the need for global readiness, including mass vaccination campaigns delivered with unprecedented speed. She highlighted that although scientists have identified 25 virus families comprising thousands of individual viruses, many more viruses remain undiscovered, holding the potential to evolve into pandemics.
While COVID-19, despite its significant death toll, had a relatively high recovery rate for the majority of those infected, “Disease X” presents a different, grimmer scenario. Bingham compared it to the highly infectious measles with the fatality rate of Ebola (67%), emphasizing that somewhere in the world, it could be silently replicating, awaiting its moment to surface.
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Bingham attributed the rise in outbreaks to the increasing trend of urbanization, with more people congregating in cities. She also noted that habitat destruction plays a pivotal role, as around three-quarters of emerging infectious diseases originate in animals before leaping to humans.
She stressed the immediate need for allocating financial resources to address this looming threat, emphasizing that taking action is essential to prevent a catastrophic toll. “The monetary cost of inaction is seismic. After all, even Covid-19 – a milder virus than Disease X – managed to leave us holding a bill for $16 trillion in both lost output and public health expenditure,” Bingham cautioned.
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