“Disease X”: what is it and how dangerous is it?

On January 17, the World Economic Forum in Davos will host a meeting entitled “Preparing for Disease X.” What is known about the hypothetical deadly disease is in the Kommersant material.

What is “Disease X”

“Disease X” refers to the risk of a pandemic caused by a previously unknown or previously harmless pathogen to humans. Such an infection can appear as a result of mutation, terrorist attack or carelessness in the laboratory. The term was coined by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Doctors often called “infection X” the coronavirus, which originated in China at the end of 2019 and from there spread throughout the planet. According to the World Health Organization, there are about 6.9 million deaths worldwide, making the coronavirus pandemic one of the deadliest in history.

Some doctors fear that the unpredictability of the disease could make the next “disease X” even more dangerous. World Health Organization researchers predict that in a worst-case scenario, the new infection could have 20 times the mortality rate of COVID-19. According to American immunologist and former White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci, humanity “is most often struck by exactly what it does not expect.”

Should we be afraid of “Disease X”

In January 2021, Russia’s former chief sanitary doctor Gennady Onishchenko called the emergence of new infections an “inevitable process of evolution.” The reason for his statements was the news about the emergence of a deadly “disease X” in the Congo. Mr. Onishchenko also noted that when a new disease appears, the most important thing is to prevent the spread of panic and fantasies about its nature.

In the American press, WHO specialists were criticized precisely for being excessively cautious and trying to sow panic. At the same time, physician and author of the book “The End of Epidemics,” Jonathan Quick, believes that the policy of the World Health Organization is balanced, and “complacency currently carries significant risks.”

Rospotrebnadzor believesthat Russia has all the necessary resources to successfully repel biological threats, including “disease X.” The department emphasizes that “loud” statements about a new disease may have economic motives.

What is being done to prevent a new pandemic

Since 2015, WHO has published lists of the most dangerous diseases. The lists of pathogens include coronaviruses, flaviviruses and hemorrhagic fevers. In February 2018, the World Health Organization added Disease X to its list of pathogens and diseases that require urgent development of vaccines or treatments.

To prevent new pandemics, researchers are now developing platforms that will help create vaccines within months of the first case of Disease X being identified. Simply put, they create recipes for new vaccinations. Once the virus is identified, instead of searching for vaccines from scratch, developers will be able to sequence the genome of the virus and insert it into pre-prepared platforms.

In January 2016, similar work by the WHO, together with private and public organizations, resulted in the creation of “the first ever fully effective Ebola vaccine.” It was developed and tested in 12 months; previously this process took about 5–10 years. The first vaccine against coronavirus appeared even faster – nine months after the virus was identified in China. The drug was registered in Russia in August 2020 under the name “Sputnik V”.