Disease X is not a newly identified pathogen but what military planners call a “known unknown”. It’s a disease sparked by a biological mutation, or perhaps an accident or terror attack, that catches the world by surprise and spreads fast.
By including it on the list, the WHO is acknowledging that infectious diseases and the epidemics they spawn are inherently unpredictable. Like the Spanish flu which killed 50m to 100m people between 1918 and 1920, Disease X is the catastrophe nobody saw coming until it was too late. [...]
On the bright side, the number of incidents involving bioweapons to date has been very low, with hoaxes far outnumbering genuine attacks. Non-state actors, including IS, appear to lack the capacity to develop a bio-weapon with large scale reach. [...]
Only last year Canadian researchers published a peer-reviewed paper detailing how they had synthetically engineered horsepox (a close relative of the smallpox virus) from scratch using equipment now which falls within the reach of many terror groups.
The paper’s publication has been widely condemned as a security breach. The details provided could “substantively assist those with lesser degrees of experience to synthesize smallpox”, said one critic.
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