A UK health expert has said that Disease X, the name given by World Health Organisation (WHO), can cause another pandemic deadlier than Covid-19. In an interview with Daily Mail, Kate Bingham, who served as the chair of the UK’s Vaccine Taskforce from May to December 2020, said the new virus could have a similar impact to the devastating Spanish Flu of 1919-1920. According to WHO, Disease X could be a new agent – a virus, a bacterium, or a fungus – without any known treatments.
If the world has to tackle the threat from Disease X, “the world will have to prepare for mass vaccination drives and deliver the doses in record time”. The experts said that scientists have identified 25 virus families, but there could be more than one million undiscovered variants, which may be able to jump from one species to another.
