'Disease X': Scientist who discovered Ebola warns against more 'deadly' viruses in future

In a dire warning to humanity, a scientist who discovered the Ebola virus cautioned about many potentially fatal and deadly viruses that are likely to be discovered in the future. Speaking to CNN in the DRC's capital, Kinshasa, professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe Tamfum sounded an alarm about many more zoonotic diseases that can transmit from animal to humans, that can pose mysterious health and life risks. According to Tamfum, diseases such as yellow fever, various forms of influenza, rabies, brucellosis, and Lyme disease had all jumped from the rodents or insects to the humans and have led to an outbreak of pandemics or the epidemics. 

Meanwhile, Doctor Dadin Bonkole, who currently tends to patients in a remote town in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) issued a similar warning about the unknown new pathogens that can spread ‘Disease X’ similar to the COVID-19. What if this unknown disease has transmissibility higher than the SRAS-CoV-2 and mortality rate worse than Ebola’s 90 percent?” Bonkole asked. ‘It's a scientific fear, based on scientific facts,’ he told CNN, adding that humanity needs to be frightened as both Ebola and COVD-19 were previously unknown diseases to mankind. Bonkole has been treating a woman with symptoms of hemorrhagic fever. 

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[Ebola victim is put to rest at the Muslim cemetery in Beni, Congo. Eastern Congo. Credit: AP]

[Health workers wearing protective suits tend to an Ebola victim kept in an isolation tent in Beni, Congo. Credit: AP]

Risks of new, deadly, virus outbreaks 'real'

The World Health Organization (WHO) officially announced the end of the Ebola outbreak this year in June 2020. The disease claimed at least the lives of nearly 2,280 people in Eastern Congo in the span of 2 years. However, according to WHO, the recent outbreak of COVID-19 led to the risk of another new Ebola outbreak in the North, leading humanity into enormous health challenges. Scientist Jean-Jacques Muyembe Tamfum coordinated the national Ebola response and managed to develop a new treatment for the deadly, incurable hemorrhagic disease many in Congo have been suffering from. Tamfum attributed the vaccine and medical treatment for the control of deadly viruses like Ebola. Meanwhile, as the scientists developed the vaccine for the coronavirus that has mutated into a new variant in the UK, Tamfum reiterated that encountering a new, deadly, virus in the future was 'very real’. 

[Healthcare worker in Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Credit: Twitter/@boppinmule]

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