Why Mysterious ‘Disease X’ Is Now a Major Concern for the U.S.

The current Disease X appears to be airborne in the African Condo with pandemic potential, but what it is is a mystery right now as it spreads among hundreds with nearly 100 fatalities.

Disease X is an unnamed disease that doctors and researchers with the World Health Organization, among others, are trying to understand.

COVID-19 was the first official Disease X. According to NPR, discovering, naming, and fighting Disease X viruses is the world's future. The World Health Organization, which, as you know, is a specialized agency with 300 scientists, it is currently researching more than 25 virus families. 

However, according to Time Magazine, Donald Trump has pulled America out of the WHO, which is dangerous.  Meanwhile, according to NBC News, Trump has fired CDC disease detectors as his thousands of health agency cuts continue. He's also ordered the CDC to cut off all communication with the WHO.

For Americans, it may not be obvious immediately what the impact will be, but given the world we live in and all of the factors that are driving more disease outbreaks, America cannot fight them alone. We need an effective WHO to not just keep the world safe from these diseases, but to keep Americans safe from these diseases.

According to the New Scientist website, Disease X viruses have the potential to cause the next epidemic or a new global pandemic like COVID-19. Now that the second one is officially alive, and because global pandemics are a continued concern, the big question is how worried we should be, especially now that Trump has alienated us from the rest of the world.

Situations like this occur probably several times a year around the world. Most times, an unidentified disease is in fact identified as something that's known and brought under control locally. However, in all such instances the concern is that the disease will take off and spread around the world, as COVID-19 did.

 

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Thanks to the WHO, COVID-19 has spurred the development of novel vaccine designs that could be quickly repurposed to target Disease X.

This list of priority pathogens has become a reference point for the research community on where to focus energies to manage the next threat and is the agreed direction for where we—as a global research community—need to invest energy and funds to develop tests, treatments and vaccines.

We know that COVID-19 changed things as the world witnessed its deadly spread. I don't have to remind you what a historic time that was and how the pandemic has since altered our lives forever.

Respiratory pathogens like influenza and COVID-19 are being investigated as possible causes of this new Disease X. According to NPR, so are malaria and measles.

PS: You've heard about the massive Measles outbreak in Texas and New Mexico among the unvaccinated, right? Meanwhile, one of the largest tuberculosis outbreaks in the United States in recent decades is spreading in Kansas.