"Engaging, accessible and ultimately optimistic account" - BBC Medical Editor Fergus Walsh
"DISEASE X sets out a game-changing plan for how the world can learn from Covid-19 and be ready for the next pandemic." - Tony Blair, former British Prime Minister
A real-life page-turner by an award-winning health journalist on the global 100-days mission to catch the next virus outbreak, codenamed DISEASE X, before it spreads worldwide.
With a foreword written by former British Prime Minister, Sir Tony Blair, DISEASE X is a fast-paced, almost-real-time account of how international scientists and global public health leaders are preparing the world to be able to contain outbreaks of new and re-emerging infectious diseases before they spawn deadly global contagions like Covid-19.
DISEASE X is the codename given by the World Health Organisation to a pathogen currently unknown to science that could cause havoc to humankind. Emerging infections are sending us multiple warnings that another Disease X is looming. We've had SARS in 2002, H5N1 bird flu in 2004, H1N1 'swine flu' in 2009, MERS in 2012, Ebola in 2014, Zika in 2015 and now COVID-19. These events are not freak events, but are happening continually, and at an increasing cadence.
Written by a long-standing ex-Reuters global health and science correspondent, Kate Kelland, DISEASE X uses privileged access to the body leading international efforts to control viral outbreaks, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), and its CEO, Dr Richard Hatchett. CEPI seed-funded three successful COVID vaccines, including the AstraZeneca and Moderna shots. Weaving in insights from the likes of Bill Gates, Erna Solberg, Jeremy Farrar and Seth Berkley, DISEASE X explores the the emergence of the novel coronavirus and the deadly crisis it caused. It analyses the responses of global health organisations and experts, including the WHO; national governments in Britain, China and the USA; COVAX, the global vaccine allocation facility; pharmaceutical companies; and leading research scientists.
Ultimately, DISEASE X is a story of hope. It tells of how, throughout the devastation of Covid, science and human ingenuity have shown that the world can devise intricate new weapons at breath-taking pace against deadly diseases it has never encountered before. It also tells how the world's public health scientists are embarking on a 100 Days Mission to embed that scientific progress into a pandemic-busting plan to defuse future threats from as-yet-unknown pathogens in a little over three months. This is the 100 Days Mission - backed by the G7 and G20 - that will see a newly prepared world, one that can move at speed to snuff out future threats before they become deadly pandemics.
Industry Reviews
'Kate Kelland, Chief Scientific Writer at the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and previously an award-winning journalist at Reuters, has interviewed scientists and decision-makers for DISEASE X - The 100 Days Mission to End Pandemics. The result is a fascinating and informed exploration of global health security, and a broadly encouraging assessment of how to prevent pandemics.' Vaccines Today
'Covid-19 will not be the last pandemic to cause havoc. Disease X sets out how a mystery pathogen of the future could be contained before it goes global, but only if lessons are learned from SARS-CoV-2 and other global disease threats. An engaging, accessible and ultimately optimistic account of how nations, institutions and the scientific community responded to Covid, and how they could work together in future.' Fergus Walsh, BBC Medical Editor
'As Kelland argues cogently, fear of the next outbreak should not paralyse us but instead galvanise us into making sure the terrible toll of Covid-19 is not repeated. Just as we do not wait for a formal declaration of war before building up military capabilities, we must be prepared to invest in rapid surveillance, financing, vaccines, treatments and manufacturing capacity ahead of time. Disease X is a valuable policy roadmap in a world custom-built for pandemics.' Anjana Ahuja, co-author with Jeremy Farrar of Spike: The Virus Vs The People
'Disease X delivers a sobering message. It also offers hope that when the next deadly virus with pandemic potential emerges - not if - the world will be much better equipped to respond. With access to key players on the frontlines, Disease X takes us inside the effort to prevent future outbreaks from exploding into global disasters. People remember wars. They forget about pandemics. Three years after the Covid crisis erupted, we're desperate to move on. But this important book outlines why it will be vital to keep pandemic threats at the top of our priority list for decades to come.' James Paton, former Health Correspondent for Bloomberg News