Disease X, the next pandemic? What is it and why does it concern WHO?

In recent days there has been a lot of talk about diseasea potential threat to global public health that was discussed at one of the World Economic Forum or Davos Forum conferences, where it was mentioned that an unknown “Disease X” could cause 20 times more deaths than the COVID-19 pandemic. .

But what does it really consist of? The increased risk of the disease is due to its epidemic potential and the need for urgent investigation to avoid a new pandemic.

“The disease is therefore not a real pathology, but the possibility that hypothetical unidentified pathogen cause a pandemic that could be much more serious than that caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.

He Dr. Federico Arribas Monzónhead of the Assessment and Accreditation Service of the Ministry of Health of Aragon, explains to WebConsultas that the aforementioned “disease does not currently exist.

“This is something classic in epidemiology; In the study of infectious diseases, there has always been talk about the possible emergence of a new virus or modification of an existing virus that is easily contagious and has a high lethality. Epidemiological surveillance systems monitor the “de facto” occurrence of outbreaks caused by new viruses (for example, changes in influenza viruses) or viruses existing in the animal kingdom that are transmitted to humans and can spread between people. So this is nothing new.”

Adelaide Sarukhan, A doctor of immunology and scientific editor of ISGlobal, she explains to WebConsultas that “the last update to the WHO list of priority pathogens or diseases in 2018 included diseases that we know have the potential to cause a pandemic,” and adds: “We can say that the first disease “It began to spread between people and caused a major pandemic.”

Dr. Arribas notes: “Such news, misused, seems to want to scare the population, but it is not known for what purposes. I believe this will always be the case. potential threatTherefore, it is necessary to strengthen epidemiological surveillance systems to be able to detect these changes as quickly as possible and establish control measures in advance. That is, you need to know that this could have been prepared, and not cause unreasonable fear.”

The purpose of creating the concept of “disease” Including diseases as a priority for which we have developed antiviral drugs, vaccines, etc. This helps us better prepare for the unknown and act faster. It’s about setting a framework to speed up our response if something new arises,” says Adelaide Sarukhan.

From my side, Dr Richard Hatchett, executive director of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), explained in a UN blog: “The X in Disease X represents everything we don’t know. This is a new disease that we will know very little about when it first appears: it may or may not be fatal, highly contagious and a threat to our way of life. We also don’t know when or how it will cross the viral border and infect people. What we do know is that the next disease X is coming and that we must be prepared.”

The expert also noted that the purpose of CEPI was to make it possible to respond to a hypothetical disease. new vaccine in just 100 days. “It takes just over three months to deactivate the threat of a pathogen capable of causing a pandemic. Combined with improved surveillance to enable early detection and prevention, and rapid and effective use of non-pharmaceutical measures, vaccine delivery within 100 days will give the world a chance to extinguish the existential threat of a future pandemic virus.”

“The work that is being done in research to be able to produce a specific vaccine or a new drug in a short time is really interesting. In many cases, this speed is due to the fact that research continues for a long time and many years of knowledge are used to create a new vaccine or new drug. For this reason, supporting research is another of the measures that need to be implemented,” says Dr. Arribas Monzón, adding: “At the national level, the creation of a Public Health Agency that would coordinate all these issues would be “an important element in the fight against these possible emerging diseases.”

Article published in a scientific journal European Journal of Public Health identified the following key strategies for be prepared for illness

• All these measures are aimed at reducing the risk of contact with natural reservoirs of unknown viruses (effect shed or overflow)
• Improve surveillance of human and animal diseases
• Rapid detection and sequencing of infectious agent
• Strengthen research programs to reduce delays between the development and production of therapeutic options.
• Accelerate the implementation of pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical measures.
• Developing international protocols to ensure equitable and global distribution of medicines and vaccines.

Among the candidates for the role of the cause of the following disease antibiotic-resistant bacteria and therefore a pandemic may occur caused by bacteria resistant to all weapon that we must fight them.”

The researcher emphasizes that zoonotic viruses – those that live in animal reservoirs – pose one of the biggest threats to humanity because many of them we are unaware of, and we are invading more and more habitats and coming into contact with bats and other animals, thereby facilitating the spread of these pathogens. from one species to another.

Another danger, according to the expert, is climate change and land use in the Arctic, where viruses hundreds of thousands of years old have been discovered and reactivated. “Here is also a possible source of viruses with pandemic or at least epidemic potential. They call them zombie virus, this seems a little alarmist to me, but it is important, and scientists are also warning about the possibility of the spread of one of these viruses that have remained latent for hundreds of thousands of years. It may be that nothing happens and it may not even be able to infect people, but if one in a thousand has it, it could be dangerous.”

The other eight diseases considered by WHO to be a public health priority are:

“This list of priority pathogens has provided guidance for the research community in determining where to focus efforts to combat the next threat,” said Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, WHO chief scientist. “It is being developed in collaboration with experts in the field and is an agreed direction in which we, as a global research community, need to invest energy and resources to develop tests, treatments and vaccines.”

In fact, we still do not have vaccines to prevent all infectious diseases that can cause epidemic outbreaks. Adelaide Sarukhan emphasized that “WHO is in the process of updating this list of pathogens, which will obviously still include diseases, SARS, Ebola virus… – they are now reviewing viral families, because this will help prepare us not only for a specific pathogen, but also for a whole family of pathogens.”