{"id":4761,"date":"2023-09-27T06:22:22","date_gmt":"2023-09-27T11:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=4761"},"modified":"2023-09-27T06:22:37","modified_gmt":"2023-09-27T11:22:37","slug":"what-is-disease-x-how-scientists-are-preparing-for-the-next-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2023\/09\/27\/what-is-disease-x-how-scientists-are-preparing-for-the-next-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is Disease X? How Scientists Are Preparing for the Next Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Washington Post<\/a> It sounds like something Elon Musk might have cooked up: \u201cDisease X.\u201d In fact, the term was coined years ago as a way of getting scientists to work on medical countermeasures for unknown infectious threats \u2014 novel coronaviruses like the one that causes Covid-19, for example \u2014 instead of just known ones, like the Ebola virus. The idea was to encourage the development of platform technologies, including vaccines, drug therapies and diagnostic tests, that could be rapidly adapted and deployed in response to an array of future outbreaks with epidemic or pandemic potential.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. What is \u2018Disease X?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s the somewhat mysterious name for an illness caused by a presently unknown, yet serious microbial threat. The World Health Organization added Disease X in 2017 to a short list of pathogens deemed a top priority for research, alongside known killers like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Ebola. Covid-19, caused by a novel coronavirus, was an example of a Disease X when it touched off the pandemic at the end of 2019. The vast reservoir of viruses circulating in wildlife are seen as a likely source of more such diseases. That\u2019s because of their potential to spill over and infect other species, including humans, giving rise to an infection against which people will have no immunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. What\u2019s the point of studying Disease X?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the WHO puts it, it\u2019s to \u201cenable early cross-cutting R&D preparedness that is also relevant\u201d for an unknown disease. The humanitarian crisis sparked by the 2014\u20132016 Ebola epidemic in West Africa was a wake up call. Despite decades of research, there were no products ready to deploy in time to save more than 11,000 lives. In response, the WHO created an R&D Blueprint to accelerate development of a range of tools for \u201cpriority diseases.\u201d The current list includes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Covid-19,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Ebola virus disease and Marburg virus disease,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Lassa fever,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and SARS,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Nipah and henipaviral diseases,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Rift Valley fever,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Zika,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Washington Post It sounds like something Elon Musk might have cooked up: \u201cDisease X.\u201d In fact, the term was coined years ago as a way of getting scientists to work on medical countermeasures for unknown infectious threats \u2014 novel coronaviruses like the one that causes Covid-19, for example \u2014 instead of just known ones, like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4761"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4762,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4761\/revisions\/4762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}