Video falsely claims the next deadly global pandemic is here

A video featuring ominous images of oversized viruses and people in medical masks warns that a pandemic more devastating than the one caused by COVID-19 is here.

"A new deadly pandemic is at our doorstep," the Oct. 2 Facebook video claimed. "The new threat comes in the form of an unknown virus, more lethal and more contagious than anything we have experienced before."

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

(Screengrab from Facebook)

The Facebook video also mentions World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warning about the next pandemic.

During his May address to the World Health Assembly, Tedros said the end of the COVID-19 global health emergency does not mean the virus is no longer a concern.

"The threat of another variant emerging that causes new surges of disease and death remains. And the threat of another pathogen emerging with even deadlier potential remains," he said.

Nevertheless, no new global health crisis has been declared.

The World Health Organization maintains a list of "priority pathogens" to identify and prepare for diseases that could cause global outbreaks or pandemics. The current priority diseases are:

• COVID-19

• Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever

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• Ebola virus disease and Marburg virus disease

• Lassa fever

• Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)

• Nipah and henipaviral diseases

• Rift Valley fever

• Zika

• "Disease X"

According to the World Health Organization, Disease X "represents the knowledge that a serious international epidemic could be caused by a pathogen currently unknown to cause human disease."

Conspiracy theorists have hijacked the term Disease X to spread baseless narratives that future pandemics are "planned" or "money-making scams."

The World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other public health authorities track disease outbreaks around the globe and send alerts to the public about emerging health threats. But, as of Oct. 5, there were no reports of an unknown disease causing widespread infection.

We rate the claim that "a new deadly pandemic is at our doorstep" False.

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