People talk in front of the logo of the World Economic Forum on the last day of the forum's annual meeting at the Congress Center in Davos, Switzerland, on Friday, Jan. 19, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP/Markus Schreiber
People talk in front of the logo of the World Economic Forum on the last day of the forum's annual meeting at the Congress Center in Davos, Switzerland, on Friday, Jan. 19, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP/Markus Schreiber
Disease X is a name given to a hypothetical pathogen to help public health experts plan for future health crises. However, social media users have claimed recently that the World Economic Forum’s 2024 annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, has created a deadly contagion known as "disease X." This is false. Disease X was discussed by health-care experts on a WEF panel called “Preparing for Disease X” as a hypothetical disease and the name was first coined by the about six years ago.
In several posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, posted in January, many users shared claims the World Economic Forum’s 2024 annual meeting in Davos discussed disease X, which the WEF had created to spread panic among the public and force people to use a new vaccine.
quoted American businessman and COVID-19 vaccine critic David Martin warning about a "terror campaign" the World Health Organization is launching using so-called "disease X."
"What they're doing right now is they're planning the sequence of events where they can actually cascade another terror campaign," reads the Jan. 18 post, which also contained a recording of Martin talking about disease X.
"They blundered their way into COVID, and unfortunately (for them), they did not do the full control takeover that they wanted, which is exactly what is on the agenda for Davos this week."
said the Davos forum has created disease X and it will use it to push people to take a vaccine.
"The Davos psychopaths are meeting to talk about their latest creation called X which will also have another deadly vaccine attached to it and nothing will be done about it," the user said on Jan. 14, before the Davos panel was held.
"We are getting exactly what we deserve."
Rating: False
Disease X doesn't exist as an actual illness. The World Health Organization created "disease X" as a hypothetical concept to identify a list of priority pathogens that present high risks to public health around the world.
In 2022, the WHO said it was launching a global scientific process to update the list of priority pathogens that can cause outbreaks or pandemics. It said that effort will help in guiding global investment, research and development to address possible spread of such pathogens.
The first list of pathogens that could cause a global pandemic was published by the WHO in 2017 and it has been updated since then to include COVID-19, Crimean-Cong haemorrhagic fever, Ebola virus disease and Marburg virus disease, Lassa fever, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Nipah and henipaviral diseases, Rift Valley fever, Zika and disease X.
"Disease X is included to indicate an unknown pathogen that could cause a serious international epidemic," the WHO said in a about the WHO’s intent to update its list.
“Targeting priority pathogens and virus families for research and development of countermeasures is essential for a fast and effective epidemic and pandemic response,” Dr. Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, said in the 2022 announcement.
It is not unusual for public health agencies to plan for unknown health crises. After the SARS epidemic that killed 44 people in Canada in 2003, a was created to assess the "current public health efforts and lessons learned for ongoing and future infectious disease control." The committee's report highlighted the dangers of emerging infectious diseases from around the world, and helped lead to the creation of the Public Health Agency of Canada.
A discussed disease X on Jan. 17. The panel, which can be viewed online, featured global health-care leaders, including WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus; Preetha Reddy, vice-chairwoman of Apollo Hospitals in India; Roy Jakobs, CEO of health technology company Royal Philips; Michel Demaré, chairman of the board at AstraZeneca; Nísia Trindade Lima, Brazil’s minister of health; and moderator Nancy Brown, CEO of the American Heart Association.
"With the World Health Organization continuing to research the potential of so-called ‘Disease X’, what novel efforts are needed to prepare healthcare systems for the multiple challenges ahead?" a description for the panel, called “Preparing for Disease X,” said.
Participants in the panel discussed how to prepare health-care systems for future pandemics and other health crises, but Tedros started the discussion by addressing the social media stir over the use of the term "disease X."
"There are things that are unknown that may happen and anything happening is a matter of when, not if," Tedros said. "So we need to have a placeholder for that, for the disease we don't know that may come, and that was when we gave the name disease X."
Claims that COVID-19 vaccines have killed millions have been by other fact checkers, and ɫtvhas previously debunked claims questioning COVID-19 vaccines' safety and effectiveness.
Sources
Claims can be found on X (, ) and ()
The WHO policy on ()
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