Last Updated on December 2, 2022 by Dr Bucho
Disease X: On 21 November 2022, WHO has launched a global scientific process involving more than 300 experts to update the list of priority pathogens. They will evaluate 25 virus families & bacteria including “Disease X”, an unknown pathogen that could cause a serious international epidemic.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “Disease X represents the knowledge that a serious international epidemic could be caused by a pathogen currently unknown to cause human disease.” Disease X is a placeholder name that was adopted by the World Health Organization (WHO) in February 2018 on their shortlist of blueprint priority diseases to represent a hypothetical, unknown pathogen that could cause a future epidemic.


A “pathogen X” is thought to be the cause of disease X. A zoonotic pathogen, most likely an RNA virus is anticipated to emerge from a location where the correct confluence of risk variables greatly increases the possibility of continuous transmission.
Some experts have referred to Zika as a Disease X, and other specialists have even stated that COVID-19, caused by the severe acute respiratory coronavirus virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), satisfied the criteria to be designated the first disease X. 5 A regrettable possibility, though, is that COVID-19 and other recent pandemics may have been less severe forms of what would ultimately become the most well-known Disease X. Source
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