Overview

• BBC Two’s Disease X: Hunting the Next Pandemic compiles expert warnings that a new global outbreak is likely and could surpass Covid-19 in impact.
• The film identifies Henipavirus (Nipah) and H5N1 bird flu as leading threats based on past spillovers and recent animal-to-human exposure events.
• Scenes inside the WHO emergency operations centre show daily tracking of outbreaks worldwide, from yellow fever in the Americas to bird flu in Vietnam.
• H5N1 concerns are underscored by documented exposure involving cattle and unpasteurised milk on a Texas farm and transmission to domestic cats linked to raw milk in the US.
• Data-driven simulations suggest a fast-spreading virus with a 3% fatality rate could cause roughly 140 million deaths in a year, even as new genomic tools and AI promise much faster virus identification and vaccine design.