'Disease X' To Prove 20 Times Deadlier Compared to COVID-19: Experts

Healthcare experts in the United Kingdom have been making preparations for a potential new pandemic called 'Disease X,' which is suspected to be deadlier than COVID-19 and can lead to 20 times more fatalities. It is reported that Disease X can lead to up to 50 million deaths

Health professionals are now sounding the alarm around "Disease X," after the World Health Organization coined the term. The experts have issued a warning that this potential new pandemic can lead to 20 times more fatalities compared to the coronavirus.

The world saw the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, which tragically claimed the lives of more than 2.5 million people worldwide.

Speaking to the Daily Mail Kate Bingham, who was chairperson of the UK's Vaccine Taskforce from May to December 2020, said that she believed Disease X can turn out to be considerably more perilous than COVID-19.

Disease X Can Lead To 50 Million Fatalities

Based on estimates by experts, Disease X carries the potential to lead to around 50 million fatalities. "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," she said while speaking to the Daily Mail.

Bingham emphasised that "the world will have to prepare for mass vaccination drives and deliver the doses in record time."

She stated that although 25 virus families were identified by the scientists encompassing thousands of individual viruses, she feels that experts need to discover millions of viruses as of yet and they carry the potential to evolve into pandemics.

"In a sense, we got lucky with COVID-19, despite the fact that it caused 20 million or more deaths across the world. The point is that the vast majority of people infected with the virus managed to recover. Imagine Disease X is as infectious as measles with the fatality rate of Ebola. Somewhere in the world, it's replicating, and sooner or later, somebody will start feeling sick," Bingham said.

As per Bingham, the increase in outbreaks can be attributed to the growing trend of more people gathering in urban areas. She further emphasised that the increase has also taken place because of the continual destruction of millions of acres of natural habitat every year.

"This reason is particularly important because around three-quarters of emerging infectious diseases originate in animals and then leap from species to species until they can, in certain circumstances, infect human beings," she said.

According to Bingham, one of the initial actions required is to allocate the necessary financial resources, which mainly means putting "the money on the table." " The monetary cost of inaction is seismic. After all, even Covid-19 - a milder virus than Disease X - managed to leave us holding a bill for $16 trillion in both lost output and public health expenditure," Bingham said.