Disease X: what it is and what the WHO says about a possible pandemic

Being prepared for the worst reduces the impact of any situation, and yet reality is always stranger than fiction, which is why it is important to learn from previous mistakes. Disease X has unleashed new conspiracies.

Vaccine.
With the bad memories of COVID-19 we only have prevention.

Prevention in occupational risks, in health, just like food safety, entails the misfortune that they are only talked about when they are missing or when they fail. During the rest of the time, day to day, there is the constant work of many people who do not want to be talked about, because that usually means that lives are at stake.

Thinking about what could happen to be prepared, with the aim of reducing impacts, entails carrying out immense risk analyses evaluating each of the steps and key actors that must implement actions to reduce or eliminate the risk. Not the danger, the risk.

Differences between risk and danger

Risk is the possibility of a danger occurring, for example, having a respiratory virus circulating is a danger. The risk is that there are several people infected and we have two others meet with them.

To reduce the risk we use preventive measures, which together will reduce the possibility of the danger occurring. For example: vaccination, ventilation, masks... Another objective of prevention is to have sufficient resources to be able to execute preventive measures.

The resources are not only financial, but also personal, facilities, materials... you have to be prepared.

By analysing what we would need in the worst case scenario, we will be able to stop or slow down the effects of the blow. That is why the WHO, preventive workers specialised in food safety or occupational health and safety, seem “exaggerated” and we endure with (more or less) a smile and a sigh that “it has always been done this way and nothing has happened.”

The WHO and Disease

The WHO took on this case in 2017 by making a list of diseases that have put the population in check anywhere in the world to analyse what was done and what should have been done in each of them.

WHO diseases. Disease X.
In the WHO list there is a list of diseases, the last one is Disease X.

Almost no one remembers the Avian Flu, but some of us remember that masks and hydroalcoholic gels were stockpiled, but not all of them were necessary (instead of being happy, there was tremendous criticism.)

The COVID-19 pandemic arrived and everything fell short

With COVID-19 everything was missing and everything overflowed. For this reason, this year there has been talk again about Disease X, something much worse than the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, errors should be evaluated and what would be needed for a virus more dangerous than SARS-Cov-2.

The "conspiracy"

Up to this point everything is logical. But oh, how we humans are! It is necessary to go out and deny that this is real as a specific disease.

Pandemic.
No, it is not the advance of a new "invented disease." Seriously, we're not that smart.

It is not that they are “making it up, like they did with COVID.” No, of course the symptoms you have are not due to Disease X.

Disease X is a concept, a theory, a proposal. It's not real.

Because we do not know what the coming pandemic will be like (because it will come), but reality will always surpass fiction (just like the inventiveness of some humans). Hopefully, thanks to Disease X, we can be better prepared, lives are at stake.