World Health Organisation’s boss Tedros Ghebreyesu, has urged countries to sign up to a new pandemic treaty as he warned of ‘Disease X’.
An unidentified future virus could be even more deadly than any disease we’ve faced before, he warned.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he expressed hope for a global agreement by May.
Experts suggest ‘Disease X’ could be 20 times deadlier than COVID-19.
Ghebreyesus labelled Covid the first Disease X and stressed the need for worldwide readiness for the next one. The WHO explained that the term signifies a serious global epidemic potentially caused by an unknown pathogen.
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USA Today revealed that, in 2018, WHO added ‘Disease X’ to its list of priority diseases for research.
This includes illnesses like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome and Ebola, with the goal to speed up the development of tests, vaccines, and medicines to save lives during a major health crisis.
“There are things that are unknown that may happen, and anything happening is a matter of when, not if, so we need to have a placeholder for that, for the diseases we don’t know,” Ghebreyesus said.
“We lost many people [during COVID] because we couldn’t manage them.
“They could have been saved, but there was no space. There was not enough oxygen. So how can you have a system that can expand when the need comes?”
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Ghebreyesus suggested that drafting a treaty that countries can support is the best way to prepare.
“The pandemic agreement can bring all the experience, all the challenges that we have faced and all the solutions into one,” Ghebreyesus said. “That agreement can help us to prepare for the future in a better way.”
“This is a common global interest, and very narrow national interests should not come into the way.”
It’s not clear yet how many countries will agree to sign the treaty.
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