The scientist, who discovered Ebola four decades ago, has warned humanity that an unknown number of new and potentially deadly viruses are emerging from African tropical rainforests even as a woman showing signs of hemorrhagic fever in a remote town in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, frightened by new deadly pathogens.
According to CNN, the woman in Ingende was diagnosed with several diseases, including Ebola, but they all came out as negative. It sparked fears that her illness could be caused by the so-called ‘Disease X’, a new “unexpected” pathogen that could spread as quickly as coronavirus (Covid-19) disease but has an Ebola mortality rate of 50 to 90%. The patient who is showing Ebola-like symptoms has since recovered.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that “Disease X”, where “X” stands for unexpected, is a hypothesis for now, a revolution that is feared scientists and public health experts who could cause serious disease worldwide if it happens.
“We are now in a world where new pathogens emerge. And that is the threat to humanity, ”Professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe Tamfum, who helped detect the Ebola virus in 1976, told CNN. When asked if any new disease could be more apocalyptic than Covid-19, he said: “Yes, yes, I think so. ”
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Muyembe, according to CNN, has warned of many more zoonotic diseases, or those that jump from animals to humans. Covid-19 is among those diseases, along with yellow fever and rabies, which are thought to have originated from an unknown reservoir or the term used to identify a guest ‘virus’ natural in the animal kingdom.
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Muyembe runs the National Institute for Biomedical Research (INRB) in Kinshasa, which is supported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and WHO and its laboratory act as an early warning system. the world for new diseases known as Ebola, and – perhaps more importantly – for those diseases scientists are still to find. “If a pathogen from Africa emerges, it will take time to spread worldwide. So, if this virus is found early – as in my establishment here – there will be an opportunity for Europe [and the rest of the world] to develop new strategies to combat these new pathogens, ”Muyembe told CNN.
SARS-CoV-2, which causes coronavirus infection, is suspected to have originated in China and possibly from bats. Experts have largely ruled out zoonotic disease as a result of the deforestation that is causing the natural habitats of animals to disappear.
The coronavirus disease has affected 85 million people, 1,843,143 of whom have died, worldwide, according to the Covid-19 administrator at Johns Hopkins University. India, the second worst hit country after the United States, has 10,340,469 diseases, and its death rate is 149,649.