The World Health Organization (WHO) made a dire warning of an impending pandemic at the World Government Summit, held in Dubai. WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus told world leaders that a major outbreak is a “matter of when, not if.”

According to Breitbart, the WHO director believes a new pandemic, for which the international community is ill-prepared, is on the horizon. He urged countries to sign the WHO pandemic treaty to prepare for the next so-called “Disease X” by May to fight against this “common enemy.” WHO believes that Disease X may be caused by a potential pathogen 20 times deadlier than the coronavirus.

Ghebreyesus said that while some progress has been made in surveillance, like the Pandemic Fund, building capacities in vaccine production, “the world is not prepared for a pandemic.”

The health official said that if the world fails to learn lessons from the coronavirus pandemic, “we will pay dearly next time, and there will be a next time.”

“History teaches us that the next pandemic is a matter of when, not if,” he added. “It may be caused by an influenza virus, or a new coronavirus or a new pathogen we don’t even know about yet ─ what we called Disease X. As things stand, the world remains unprepared for the next Disease X, and the next pandemic.”

He said that the pandemic agreement can bring “all the experience, all the challenges that we have faced and all the solutions into one. That agreement can help us prepare for the future in a better way. This is a common global interest, and very narrow national interests should not come into the way.”

He denied concerns that WHO abused its power during the coronavirus pandemic and would do so if Disease X struck.

“Let me be clear: WHO did not impose anything on anyone during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Ghebreyesus said. “Not lockdowns, not mask mandates, not vaccine mandates. We don’t have the power to do that, we don’t want it, and we’re not trying to get it.”

According to Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, proactive planning using conceptual disease models may help prevent the next pandemic. Planning for the emergence of an as-yet unknown infectious pathogen called Disease X could mean a swifter, more effective public health response — one that readily yields the vaccines, treatments, and diagnostic tests needed to save lives.