Preparing the world now for the next Disease X

Covid-19 marked the world’s first encounter with a ‘Disease X’ scenario. Climate change and human encroachment on wildlife habitats increases the risk of exposure to deadly pathogens

Public health systems were caught unprepared by covid-19, which brutally exposed the inadequacy of existing pandemic-response capabilities. The crisis overwhelmed supply chains and procurement mechanisms for essential medicines and supplies, straining many national health systems beyond their limits.

On December 12, 2019, a group of patients in Wuhan, China, started showing symptoms of an atypical pneumonia-like illness that did not respond well to standard treatments. Ninety days later, with more than 118,000 cases reported in 114 countries and 4,291 deaths, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared covid-19 a pandemic.

While covid-19 lockdowns and travel restrictions brought the world to a standstill, decision-makers’ response to the evolving crisis, including in high-income countries, betrayed serious information gaps and institutional shortcomings that prevented them from taking decisive action.