The necessity for intra-action reviews during the COVID-19 pandemic

After the 2014–16 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, WHO proposed a blueprint list of priority diseases for research and development, based on their epidemic potential or the absence of countermeasures.1 Among this list is disease X,1 representing the emergence of a disease previously unknown to humans that could result in a serious global health emergency. COVID-19, the disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is disease X.