It is the pandemic threat currently keeping scientists awake at night. And researchers are hoping they can stop 'disease X' in its tracks by taking a bold approach to preempt its emergence.

Virologists will attempt to identify every virus in the world that has the potential to jump from animals to humans, in the hope that collecting such information with give health workers a head start in dealing with a future outbreak.

Scientists believe the ambitious 'virus hunter' project will not only find and - hopefully neutralise - 'disease X' before it strikes but also unearth viruses 'Y' and 'Z' . Others, however, remain unconvinced the approach is a good use of funds.

Most of the big disease outbreaks of the last 100 years have originated in animals – from Ebola which came from bats to HIV that came from chimps to the 1918 Spanish Flu which jumped from birds to humans.

Now scientists have set up the Global Virome Project, with backing from USAID, which has the ambitious target of identifying all the viruses in the world that could one day jump from animals to humans.