World leaders are gathering to discuss Disease X. Here's what to know about the hypothetical pandemic.
CBSN
World leaders gathered at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday to discuss Disease X, a hypothetical virus 20 times deadlier than COVID-19.
While such a virus isn't known to currently exist, researchers, scientists and experts are hoping to proactively come up with a plan of action to combat such a virus and prepare the health system if it were to emerge as a pandemic — a possibility one expert told CBS News could happen sooner than we think.
"There are strains of viruses that have very high mortality rates that could develop the ability to transmit efficiently from human to human," said Dr. Amesh Adalja of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
Top-ranked tennis player Jannik Sinner accepted a three-month ban in a settlement with the World Anti-Doping Agency and said Saturday the agreement ends a case that was "hanging over me" since his two positive doping tests nearly a year ago.
Pope Francis slept well during a first night in the hospital after being admitted with a respiratory tract infection, the Vatican said Saturday.
American-Israeli Sagui Dekel-Chen, 36, was among three hostages released by Hamas on Saturday morning after being held in captivity in Gaza for almost a year and half. The other two hostages handed over to Red Cross personnel in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis were Israelis Sasha Troufanov, 29, and Iair Horn, 46.
Hitmen gunned down an Ecuadoran air force colonel Friday in a city hard hit by drug crime that has turned the once-peaceful South American country into one of the most violent, authorities said.
Vice President JD Vance hammered home the United States demand that the NATO alliance step up defense spending on Friday, ahead of a security meeting in Europe at a time of intense concern and uncertainty over the Trump administration's foreign policy.
The aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman was in a collision with a merchant vessel in the Mediterranean Sea near Egypt, the Navy said Thursday. There were no reports of injuries or flooding after the collision, a Navy spokesperson said in a statement.
Australia protested Thursday what it described as an "unsafe and unprofessional" interaction over the South China Sea where a Chinese fighter is accused of releasing flares that endangered an Australian military surveillance plane.
A record number of journalists were killed in 2024, the Committee to Protect Journalists said in a report released Wednesday.
Luxembourg authorities seized almost a ton of cocaine hidden in a stone crusher "of Colombian origin" in a record bust for the small European state, prosecutors said on Wednesday.
Shark attacks — particularly deadly ones — dropped substantially last year around the world, a new report shows.
Beijing — Zhang Yazhou was sitting in the passenger seat of her Tesla Model 3 when she said she heard her father's panicked voice: The brakes don't work! Approaching a red light, her father swerved around two cars before plowing into an SUV and a sedan and crashing into a large concrete barrier.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced last week that El Salvador's president offered to incarcerate deportees from the U.S. of any nationality, including U.S. citizens, but the deal came the same day as a less-publicized offer from the United States: nuclear power.
President Trump has suggested that Ukraine "may be Russian someday," in an interview aired just days before Vice President JD Vance is set to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a security summit in Germany.