WORLD leaders gathered today to discuss a deadly and mysterious disease dubbed Disease X that could spark the next pandemic.
The World Health Organisation has warned the hypothetical pathogen could kill 20 times more people than the Covid pandemic did.
Disease X represents a hypothetical, currently unknown pathogen, which was added to the WHO's list of nine priority diseases in 2018.
"Disease X represents the knowledge that a serious international epidemic could be caused by a pathogen currently unknown to cause human disease," the UN agency said.
The WHO ranks Disease X alongside Covid, Ebola, Zika virus, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars).
Talks took place at the World Economic Forum's "Preparing for Disease X" event in Davos, Switzerland on Wednesday.
A panel chaired by WHO president Dr Tedros Adhanom Gehreyesus looked into new efforts to prepare healthcare systems for the "multiple challenges ahead".
Experts do not yet know what virus will cause the next pandemic - but they have warned for decades that bird flu is the most likely candidate.
Researchers believe this is due to the threat of recombination, with high levels of human flu increasing the chance of co-infection with avian flu.
Others have long theorised that Disease X might spread by zoonotic transmission, which occurs when an animal virus or bacteria jumps to humans.
Some have even warned that Disease X may be caused by a biological mutation, an accident, or a terrorist attack that takes the globe by surprise and spreads rapidly.
Scientists said Disease X is “as infectious as measles with the fatality rate of Ebola” and that preparations had already started for an outbreak.
The WHO feels it "is more of a probability rather than possibility" that it will hit.
Writing in Mail Online, Kate Bingham, a former chair of the UK vaccine taskforce, said we may look back at the Covid pandemic like a "walk in the park".
"In a sense, we got lucky with Covid-19, even though it caused 20 million or more deaths worldwide," she said.
“The point is that the vast majority of people infected with the virus managed to recover."
She added: "Let me put it this way: the 1918–19 flu pandemic killed at least 50 million people worldwide, twice as many as were killed in World War I.
"Today, we could expect a similar death toll from one of the many viruses that already exist.
"Today, there are more viruses busily replicating and mutating than all the other life forms on our planet combined.
"Not all of them pose a threat to humans, of course - but plenty do."
Kate added: "Imagine Disease X is as infectious as measles with the fatality rate of Ebola [67 per cent].
"Somewhere in the world, it’s replicating; sooner or later, somebody will start feeling sick.
"We need to take the first steps in dealing with the next pandemic right now - and that involves putting money on the table.”
Meanwhile, scientists have already fired up Britain's world-beating new vaccine lab amid fears the unknown Disease X will trigger another global pandemic.
Health chiefs have pledged to stay on the front foot after deadly Covid tore through the UK as labs scrambled to design and test a jab in 2020.
The Vaccine Development and Evaluation Centre opens today at the high security Porton Down military science facility near Salisbury.
The UK Health Security Agency says it will soon be able to turn around a lifesaving vaccine for any dangerous new bug within 100 days.
During a lab tour, experts told The Sun it is one of the few places in the world that can handle live versions of the deadliest viruses.
Professor Dame Jenny Harries, chief of the agency, said: “We hope we will be better prepared to prevent something escalating to a pandemic.
“If it is ‘Disease X’ the work that we have done will allow us to deploy a very rapid and slick response.”
The Cabinet Office last year warned there is a five to 25 per cent chance of another pandemic in the next five years.
Most Brits have caught Covid-19 in the last 3.5 years and nearly 230,000 have died.
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