The World Health Organization (WHO) has requested the member nations to sign the pandemic treaty to address the menace of another pandemic that might be led by a conjectural virus named Disease X. Disease X’ signifies a theoretical, anonymous virus that scientists caution can be 20 times more fatal as compared to the SARS-CoV2 virus. Health experts strongly suspect that there might be another pandemic on its way caused by this mysterious disease X. Disease X was included in the WHO’s shortlist of viruses for further research in 2017 and categorized as one that could lead to a severe worldwide epidemic.
At the World Economic Forum (WEF), officials from the WHO have said that many initiatives have been launched to tackle an outbreak of another pandemic in the near future. The WHO expects that all member nations will reach a pandemic agreement by May 2024. The UN health agency has also set up a pandemic fund essentially for preparedness for another pandemic, which will benefit some low-income countries.
Considering that equity was a serious issue for COVID-19 vaccines, The WHO has set up the mRNA technology transfer hub in South Africa to deal with the equity issue and scale up the local production of vaccines. Equal distribution of vaccines among high-income and low-income countries is essential to tackle a pandemic-like scenario. The WHO officials have said that the pandemic treaty will accumulate all the challenges, solutions, and experiences related to a known pandemic under one roof and will help the world to deal with the next pandemic in a better way in the future.
Health experts from the UN health agency have cautioned that Disease X might have the potential to cause more than 50 million fatalities, which makes it even more critical for nations to start investigating and implementing preventive measures for a known epidemic or outbreak in advance. Healthcare officials believe that following preventive steps to tackle Disease X in advance might be cost-effective and can save many lives in the future.
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