By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
DAVOS, SWITZERLAND (Worthy News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has urged nations to sign on to a pandemic treaty so the world can prepare for a potential “Disease X” with a fatality rate 20 times that of COVID-19, and no vaccine.
Tedros appealed while speaking for an audience at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, which has come under fire for allegedly influencing governments.
The WHO chief said he hoped countries would reach a pandemic agreement by May to address this “common enemy.”
Disease X is a hypothetical “placeholder” virus that has not yet been formed, but scientists say it could be “20 times” deadlier than COVID-19, which allegedly killed at least some 7 million people.
Their estimation suggests a death toll of at least 140 million. That is higher than the 1918-1920 Spanish Flu, shocking the world with a death toll of up to 100 million, though the world population of up to 2 billion was significantly lower than the current 8 billion people roaming the earth.
Disease X was added to the WHO’s short list of pathogens for research in 2017 that could cause a “serious international epidemic,” the WHO said.
‘NATIONAL INTEREST’
In comments obtained by Worthy News late Saturday, Tedros added that “national interest” should not deter countries from not signing the new pandemic treaty. Critics say that would grant him unbridled power to mandate health edicts and pandemics.
However, WHO Director-General Tedros stressed that his health organization was already implementing measures. They include the establishment of a pandemic fund and building a technology transfer hub in South Africa to address inequities in vaccine distribution, he explained.
“Of course, some people say this may create panic,” Tedros acknowledged.
“It’s better to anticipate something that may happen because it has happened in our history many times and prepare for it,” he said.
However, several groups, including outspoken Christian and conservative commentators, fear that this could lead to forced vaccinations and lockdowns that they say limit universal rights agreed on in international human rights treaties.
The WHO suggests these policies are needed in a rapidly changing world.
Copyright 1999-2024 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
Latest News from Worthy News
Christian residents in the Dutch town of Urk, known for its many churches and fishing traditions, are providing shelter to Jews after the Netherlands’ first pogrom since World War Two.
The ‘Days of Repentance’ operation launched by Israel against Iran in late October targeted and destroyed a highly secretive nuclear weapons research facility in Parchin, according to Axios.
A United Nations committee has agreed to tackle “hate speech” and “misinformation” globally through Artificial Intelligence (AI) and media, despite worries the approach may “stifle pluralistic debate.”
Christians in Myanmar’s Rakhine state face continued persecution by the country’s Buddhist military junta (Tatmadaw), which has proved itself violently hostile to believers and recently imposed new restrictions on church services, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports.
Brief scuffles broke out, and soccer fans whistled and booed as the Israeli anthem played at the start of the France-Israel match in Paris following a pogrom against Jews in the Netherlands, officials said Friday.
China’s President Xi Jinping has inaugurated a controversial massive port on the edge of Peru’s coastal desert that locals fear will leave many of them without a hopeful future.
With pornography increasingly and freely available to minors on the internet, the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) has called on the Canadian parliament to support a bill that would hold pornography platforms accountable to “ensure child sexual abuse materials and intimate images shared without consent are not uploaded to their sites,” Christian Daily International (CDI) reports.