Preparing the world community for the deadly “disease X” will allow to better fight future pandemics, according to Nikolai Kryuchkov, PhD in medical sciences, immunologist. In a conversation with Lenta.ru, he explained the essence of the discussion of this topic at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, which will be held on 17 January.
“There is a list of pathogens that in the long term can cause a pandemic. This does not mean that they will necessarily cause it, but they have pandemic potential, and they have not caused a pandemic before. There are quite a few of these infections, several dozen. They are on the radar of specialists, and their behaviour is monitored. These are, for example, coronaviruses, haemorrhagic fevers, Zika virus, Nipah virus and a number of others. But there are also infections that have not attracted the attention of specialists (…). There are infections that actually have pandemic potential, but we don’t know anything about them, either they don’t exist yet or they are evolving,” the immunologist explained.
It is important to realise that not only what we pay attention to can be the source of a pandemic
Nikolay Kryuchkov
immunologist
