It didn’t take more than a mysterious letter to arouse fantasies, as the World Economic Forum in Davos opens this Monday. In two days, Wednesday, a meeting is planned there to discuss “preparation for disease X”. “This crazy round table”, alarm viral posts on
This is not the first time that disease X has shaken up the anti-vaccine and conspiracy sphere. In June, a viral video on TikTok estimated that this disease X would have been “invented by the WHO in 2018” to plan the next pandemic. Nothing like that, actually. Since 2018, this disease the list of priority diseases and pathogens for research and development, established by the World Health Organization. Also in this list is the Ebola virus, the Zika virus or Covid-19, for example.
“The world must be better prepared”
“Each of these diseases was an X disease in its time,” they wrote in an editorial in the scientific magazine Science in 2021, epidemiologists and officials at the WHO Maria Van Kerkhove, Michael Ryan as well as the director general of the organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. The risk of future emergence is driven by multiple forces, including climate change, ecosystem modification and increasing urbanization. The next Disease X could appear at any time, and the world needs to be better prepared. »
With this list, it’s all about prioritizing research. But it “does not indicate the most probable causes of the next epidemic either”, it is specified on the WHO website. Between 631,000 to 827,000 unknown viruses have the capacity to infect humans, highlights a presentation by 2022 of the WHO on disease X and the challenge of the unknown. For WHO researchers, this pathogen anthropogenic land degradation.
A major WHO file
Disease This possible pandemic could cause “20 twenty times more deaths than Covid-19”, it is noted in the event description on the World Economic Forum website. The Director General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and the Chairman of the Board of Directors of AstraZeneca, Michel Demaré, are participating in this conference.
Preparing for future epidemics is a major issue on which the WHO is working, so it is rather logical to see a meeting on the agenda for Davos. At the start of 2024, the WHO is also working to develop a scientific framework for epidemic and pandemic preparedness with a cycle of consultations planned until February.