Fears virus with up to 70% mortality rate could be 'Disease X' and bring humanity to halt

The Covid-19 pandemic claimed the lives of approximately 1.2 million deaths but, worryingly, experts fear it was just a "warning shot" of things to come. While the worst of that pandemic is behind us, it still isn't over, with a new variant sweeping the UK in recent weeks.

But, experts and that another virus, with the potential to cause much more harm, is lurking in the wings.

To understand where this killer pandemic might come from, and what steps are being taken Ito prevent it, Dr Chris Van Tulleken made a film for the BBC called Disease X: Hunting the Next Pandemic.

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He attended a daily meeting at the WHO’s headquarters in Geneva, with experts on the ground in Africa, Asia and the Americas all reporting on local disease outbreaks that have the potential to cause more widespread harm.

Some of them have horrifying mortality rates. One outbreak of Avian Flu in Vietnam, for example, had as few as 129 confirmed cases but has already caused 65 deaths.

The organisation noted that there had been a number of cases of Yellow Fever particularly in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, where from 144 cases, 56 of them had been fatal.

Doctor Margaret Harris explains that the WHO is constantly monitoring potential threats around the world, and shared the diseases that particularly worry experts. She explained: “Ebola, Marburg, influenza, all the coronaviruses but probably most importantly, there’s Disease X.

“Disease X is a term that we coined in 2018 to describe an unknown pathogen, one with the potential to cause a serious global pandemic.”

While Covid began as a Disease X, she says, it’s not the only one. Chris adds that experts are already monitoring outbreaks of several unknown diseases that as yet have no known cure, and no known limits. One of the worst, he fears, is the Henipavirus..

Viruses, by their nature, tend to become less dangerous over time as less-deadly strains spread more easily and crowd out their more fatal variants. But with the speed of global air travel, transmission of a deadly pandemic could easily outrace the natural decline in a disease’s threat level.

Dr Harris says that the next “Disease X” could come from anywhere, and cause mass deaths before experts can react. She warns: “What could result, could make the Covid-19 pandemic look mild.”

Not only viruses, but bacteria and fungal infections could also be responsible for the next threat to humanity. Chris continued: “It might be a modified, mutated version of something that we know about quite well or it could be a completely new pathogen – one that we’ve never even imagined.”

Alongside modern medicine is modern farming, and Chris says that the risks of a disease making the jump from livestock to humans is only increasing.

He cites the example of a village in Malaysia “destroyed” by an outbreak of Henipavirus in the 1990s after the disease spread from pigs to their human keepers.

The area was quarantined by armed troops to contain the outbreak. The virus has a recorded fatality rate of between 40 and 75%, and the damage it could cause if it began to spread internationally is incalculable.

A new study also found elements of the virus in Australian bats, increasing fears it could become airborne.

Meanwhile, the more widespread H5N1 Bird flu, which has already spread to cows on a huge Texas ranch, is known to have infected farm workers and vets. There are concerns that millions of gallons of raw milk which had been sold for human consumption was contaminated with the virus.

There have been no recorded serious issues from that contamination, but still Bird flu, is now “closer to pandemic potential than it’s ever been before,” Chris says.

He adds: “The best case scenario for an H5N1 pandemic is that it mutates into a harmless disease. The worst case if for it to mutate into something highly lethal and very contagious.”

The experts at the WHO headquarters cannot, as yet, say which way it will go. But they are watching every day in the hope that they can warn us all before it’s too late.

Disease X: Hunting the Next Pandemic aired on BBC Two and is on iPlayer now