What Is 'Disease X'? Britain Warned Of The Possibility Of A 'New Pandemic' Amid Covid, Monkeypox, Polio Cases

WHO warned last year that the next pandemic could be 'on the scale' of the Black Death, which had claimed approximately 75 million lives between 1346 and 1353.

The X in ‘Disease X’ stands for everything that is not known about a pathogen that could cause a future epidemic.

With a string of infectious diseases hitting the United Kingdom in the last six months, experts have warned Britain of the possibility of a new pandemic being called 'Disease X', asking it to “strengthen” its preparations.

Something is likely “on the horizon”, an expert in diseases said after polio traces were found in sewage samples in parts of London last week for the first time in 40 years. The polio outbreak was declared a “national incident”, and parents were told to ensure their children were vaccinated.

Prior to this, a strain of H5 bird flu was found in a human in January this year, and there were three cases of Lassa fever, one of them fatal, in February in the UK.

In March, Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever arrived in England after a woman returned to the UK from central Asia.

The month of May saw a major addition to this string of infectious diseases, with the first case of Monkeypox being reported. It has since spread and nearly 800 cases have been recorded so far.

“People going from this country to other countries and back is probably the biggest driver of disease importations,” Paul Hunter, Professor of Medicine at the University of East Anglia, told The Telegraph. 

According to experts, Britain could see influenza and measles among the next diseases to surge, though the arrival of the next Disease X is "almost impossible to predict", The Telegraph report said.

“We do need to pay attention, to strengthen pandemic preparedness and maintain our surveillance systems, because in the grand scheme of things Covid wasn't as bad as it potentially could have been,” Prof Hunter was quoted as saying. 

Speaking about the recent outbreaks, Professor Mark Woolhouse of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, told the newspaper: “There's a name for what we're seeing at the moment in the UK and elsewhere, it's called chatter. It's a term anti-terrorist [units] use to describe the small events that might signify something more major on the horizon… infectious diseases work much the same way.”

What Is Disease X? What Experts Say About Preventions

The World Health Organization (WHO) came up with the term, ‘Disease X’, three years ago to explain a hypothetical, not-known-yet pathogen that could cause an epidemic in the future. 

In short, the X in ‘Disease X’ stands for everything that is not known.

“Disease X represents the knowledge that a serious international epidemic could be caused by a pathogen currently unknown to cause human disease. The R&D Blueprint explicitly seeks to enable early cross-cutting R&D preparedness that is also relevant for an unknown ‘Disease X’,” WHO had said.

In 2021, the UN health agency warned that the next pandemic could be “on the scale” of the Black Death, which had claimed approximately 75 million lives between 1346 and 1353. 

“The early 21st century has been a perfect storm for emerging infectious diseases, and everything is pointing towards the likelihood of more and more outbreaks. All the drivers of outbreaks are in fact getting worse, not better, over time,” Professor Woolhouse was quoted as saying.

Scientists have earlier said the next pandemic could be caused by 'zoonotic' diseases that are caused by animals passing infections on to humans. And one unfortunate possibility they have predicted is that “Covid-19 and other recent pandemics might have been milder versions of what will eventually be the most prominent Disease X”.

USA's top infectious diseases expert Dr Anthony Fauci had also warned of a "new pandemic era", saying population growth across developing nations, particularly where human settlements have encroached into forest areas, is one of a growing list of reasons for this.

“It might sound like science fiction, but Disease X is something we must prepare for,” Dr Richard Hatchett, chief executive officer of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), had said in June 2021. 

While unexpected outbreaks of an infectious disease have repeatedly taken the medical world by surprise, catching them unawares at times, Hatchett wrote in December last year that the CEPI aspired to be able to respond to the next “Disease X” with a new vaccine in just 100 days.