Ramit Mehrotra, Pune
Healthcare professionals in the UK are now gearing up for a so-called “Disease X,” which is potentially more fatal than the COVID-19 virus. The upcoming health crisis is anticipated to claim close to 50 million lives.
The WHO has already labeled disease X as a global pandemic, and the experts suggest that it is already heading its way. Almost 700 million people have lost their lives in the recent COVID-19 pandemic since 2020. The health advisory has claimed that the new pandemic will kill people 20 times more than the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kate Brigham, who headed the UK’s Vaccine Taskforce from May to December 2020, expressed her concern that the upcoming pandemic could be more perilous than COVID-19. Based on expert claims, the pandemic would be as devastating as the Spanish Flu of 1918–1920. This is a wake-up call for all healthcare workers and legislative members, with provisions to have vaccines and preventive measures to combat the upcoming pandemic in record time.
Scientists have identified 25 virus family species, encompassing thousands of individual viruses; they are yet to identify another million bunches of virus samples, which can potentially evolve into a fatal pandemic. Kate said that we got lucky with COVID-19, despite the fact that it caused 20 million or more deaths across the world. According to her, the crucial point is that a large percentage of the individuals who became infected with the virus eventually recovered. Disease X on the other hand is infectious like measles, with a fatality rate as deadly as the Ebola virus.
The rise of outbreaks is attributed to more people migrating to urban areas. The damage to the immune systems of people is also due to the continual destruction of the natural habitats of ecosystems. The reasons are epistemologically credible, as most diseases are borne by animals and transmitted to humans. To combat the upcoming fatal pandemic, countries need to make arrangements for heavy financial resources to make investments in pre-emptive efforts to contain the disease.