Disease X: Post-COVID-19 pandemic could hit Americans hard, experts predict

HOUSTON - Could the next pandemic make the height of the COVID-19 outbreak look mild? That's what some experts predict for what's being called Disease X.

"I am very worried that we as a nation, we haven't made that commitment to fully protect the American people," explains the Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and Co-Director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development Dr. Peter Hotez.

We caught up with the internationally recognized physician, researcher, and scientist to get his take on the topic.

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"We have a likelihood that new pandemic threats, what people are calling the Disease X, are going to be arising on a regular basis," explains Dr. Hotez and he says Disease X, the next pandemic, could hit hard whenever it arrives.

Why does he think some are predicting the next pandemic will make COVID-19 look like a walk in the park? "You know, I've written about this as well, that COVID-19 is just a warmup act. The next pandemic may not be as severe, but it could be much more severe," says Dr. Hotez, and because no one knows he says it's better to be prepared.

After years of pandemics popping up including SARS and H1N1 early in the 2000s. "Ebola in 2014. We had Zika in 2016, and now we've got COVID-19," explains Hotez who says that's why the U.S. Office of Pandemic Preparedness was created, but he believes more should be done. 

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"Having the funds available to make countermeasures for new diagnostics, new vaccines and at the same time being able to support the virologists, the scientists who actually study these pathogens."

Why are we seeing so many pandemics?

"It's one of the most common questions I'm asked. It's a confluence of 21st-century forces. A big one is climate change which is altering the migration of animals that can transmit these viral pathogens," Dr. Hotez explains.

Disease X, the next pandemic, no one knows when it will hit, but experts say it's coming.