'devastating pandemic' is correct and can be used in written English.
You can use it to refer to a very severe outbreak of disease. For example, "The coronavirus pandemic has been a devastating pandemic, resulting in millions of deaths worldwide."
We can't predict with much accuracy when the next spillover from birds will happen, whether or not it will spawn a devastating pandemic killing tens of millions, or where, how and what subtype it will be.
What Are the Chances of a Devastating Pandemic Occurring in the Next 50 Years?
The most devastating pandemic in six centuries swept the globe.
HIV/Aids is the most recent truly devastating pandemic – and H5N1 avian flu was even more widespread, though less deadly.
But they have worried that it might mutate to acquire that ability, setting off a devastating pandemic.
SARS has also served as a dramatic reminder that dangerous new microbes can emerge without warning, threatening a devastating pandemic.
Yersinia pestis, the bacterium responsible for plague, has caused devastating pandemics in the past [1], [2].
One question that also needs to be addressed is why plague caused millions of deaths during devastating pandemics in the past while today plague is restricted to some geographic locations.
Major antigenic shift associated with genetic reassortment has led to devastating pandemics in 1918, 1957 and 1968, when pathogenic viruses with efficient human-to-human transmission entered the human population with no pre-existing immunity.
Although the total number of cases currently attributable to avian influenza is small in global terms — 241 cases, with 141 deaths — if the virus acquires the ability to become easily transmissible from person to person, a devastating global pandemic is a significant possibility.
Yet, there are records of devastating influenza pandemics, occurring roughly every 3 or 4 decades, going as far back as 1580 in Europe.
