The emergence of a new respiratory pathogen could lead to a pandemic with consequences comparable to those of the COVID-19 pandemic, World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on Friday, September 25.
Ghebreyesus disclosed this at at a press conference held on the sidelines of the ongoing United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York.
“One of the concerns that keep me awake at night is that a new respiratory pathogen could emerge. And that, in turn, could lead to consequences similar to those caused by COVID,” he said.
Ghebreyesus stressed that a new pandemic is inevitable and that the only question is when it will occur: “The next pandemic is not a question of ‘if,” but ‘when.””
The WHO chief also noted that the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo serves as a reminder that an epidemic can start anywhere and at any time, posing a threat not only to local communities but also to neighbouring countries and the world as a whole.
