An exercise by the UN agency earlier this month simulated an outbreak of a “fictional” virus spreading across the world
The World Health Organization (WHO) has recently rehearsed a scenario in which an ancient virus lying dormant in the remains of a woolly mammoth caused a deadly global outbreak of “mammothpox,” The Telegraph has reported, citing documents about the exercise it had obtained.
The press release by the global health authority stated that earlier this month more than 15 countries took part in Exercise Polaris, which “simulated an outbreak of a fictional virus spreading across the world,” aiming to test readiness for a new pandemic.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned earlier this month that a new pandemic “could happen in 20 years or more, or it could happen tomorrow,” describing it as an “epidemiological certainty.”
The exercise reportedly simulated an outbreak of “Mammothpox,” a fictional virus similar to smallpox, a disease with a 30% mortality rate that was eradicated in 1980, and mpox, a dangerous variant of which is currently surging across central Africa.
According to the scenario, the virus was released after a team of scientists and documentary filmmakers excavated the remains of a woolly mammoth in the Arctic. Within weeks, intensive care units across the world were “overwhelmed” and health systems were struggling to cope.
Although the countries involved in the exercise were able to contain the fictional virus, a real outbreak would prove much more complicated, the WHO acknowledged.
WHO tests pandemic response across 15 countries with simulated Arctic 'mammothpox' outbreak as ICUs struggle to copehttps://t.co/6Dt4dnN4mV
— GB News (@GBNEWS) April 15, 2025
