WHO director urges pandemic treaty to fight against Disease X

World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has called on countries to prepare for the new Disease X, Fox News reported.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday, he asked countries to come together and sign a pandemic treaty that would help them well prepare before the arrival of the deadly disease. 

He said this new disease would be 20 times deadlier.

COVID-19 took seven million lives around the world and health officials at the meeting warned that this new pandemic could be deadlier, and has the potential to kill 50 million people.

Healthcare experts emphasised that preparing for Disease X could help save lives and costs if countries begin to research and preemptive measures in advance of a known outbreak.

Tedros said that the WHO has already started implementing measures to prepare for another outbreak. 

This includes a pandemic fund and a "technology transfer hub" in South Africa that enables the local production of vaccines and would help overcome issues of vaccine inequity across high and low-income countries.

So what is Disease X?

Disease X is not a specific disease but is the name of a potential virus similar to COVID-19 in its devastations.

It is the name of an illness that is currently unknown but could pose a serious threat to humans around the world.

In 2018, WHO added Disease X to the list of top-priority research.

The aim is to be well informed and prepared before the outbreak of another virus and not face the same difficulties as we did with COVID-19.