Inside 'super-lab' built to protect UK from next 'Disease X' global pandemic
After the devastation caused by Covid-19, our scientists have stepped up their efforts to stop the next big pandemic crippling the UK.
And key to their work is a new super-laboratory, housed at the secretive Porton Down military base. It is thought to be one of the biggest high-containment facilities in Europe with the capability of testing dangerous live viruses.
Scaled up in the wake of coronavirus, it is preparing prototype vaccines which can be adapted for the next “Disease X” within 100 days of it being detected. The Daily Mirror was granted rare access to the defence base near Salisbury, Wilts, which hosts the world’s oldest chemical warfare research facility.
Dame Jenny Harries, head of the UK Health Security Agency, launched the centre with the warning that pandemics like Covid-19 were now more likely due to climate change and the rising global population. She said population monitoring and rapidly produced vaccines could stop a future outbreak before the need for lockdowns. Dame Jenny added: “We say Covid was a once-in-a-century event but I don’t think any of us think it will be another century until we get another one.
Scientists would be able to prepare a vaccine within 100 days of a virus being detected (Rowan Griffiths / Daily Mirror)“If we don’t know what Disease X is we can get ready for some virus families. We hope we will be better prepared to prevent something escalating to a pandemic. As well as building on the legacy of the pandemic… this will target a wide range of other deadly viruses and pathogens, helping to secure the health and prosperity of the UK and saving lives around the world.”
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Scientists at the 7,000-acre Porton Down site were among the first to create biological weapons in the last century. Now their focus is combating terrorism and defending Britain against infectious diseases. The base was at the forefront of the global fight against Covid-19 with its labs quickly expanded to rapidly test existing vaccines on new variants of the virus.
These functions have been taken over by UKHSA and established as its new £405million Vaccine Development and Evaluation Centre at the MoD site. Compared to before the pandemic, VDEC has enabled a 30-fold increase in high containment capacity to test live viruses – something many countries do not have. It can now test 3,000 emerging viruses and new variants a week, a massive increase from just 100 weekly before Covid.
The centre is at mysterious military base Porton Down in Wiltshire (Rowan Griffiths / Daily Mirror)During our visit we were barred from entering labs which could also be used to test bioterrorism agents. These are the preserve of just a few dozen scientists with top-level security clearance. However, we watched activity in another lab over CCTV as scientists placed their gloved arms through a flexible film isolator – which looks like a see-through plastic tent – to safely squirt live viruses into tubes.
The tubes contained blood samples from vaccinated volunteers and adding the virus would test what immunity the jabs provide. We observed some of more than 200 leading scientists based there carrying out pioneering research towards vaccines and treatments.
Their targets included new Covid variants, bird flu, monkeypox, TB and hantavirus, a severe infection that can pass from rodents to humans. They are also working on a vaccine for the feared Crimean Congo haemorrhagic fever which has a 30% fatality rate.
Our reporter Martin Bagot was granted access to the centre (Rowan Griffiths / Daily Mirror)There have been outbreaks in Spain and Turkey and experts said ticks containing the virus have already been found in the New Forest. They warned climate change could bring them en masse to Britain. VDEC is also preparing for “Disease X” - the term used to describe a currently unknown pathogen which could cause millions of deaths in a future pandemic.
Dr Isabel Oliver, UKHSA chief scientific officer, said: “The risk of new and emerging diseases is growing. We know that through scientific advances we could control these threats before they have the impact Covid had on our lives. There is no doubt there will be new infections and new pandemics in the not too distant future. Ideally we would detect threats at source and control them before they spread.”
Before Covid-19 it took 10 years, on average, to develop a new vaccine. VDEC is Britain’s contribution to the global 100 Days Mission, launched in 2021 under the UK’s G7 presidency, with the aim of deploying an effective vaccine within 100 days of identifying a new pandemic threat.
Dr Jenny Harries became well known to the public during the Covid pandemic (Rowan Griffiths / Daily Mirror)The labs’ deputy director, Dr Bassam Hallis, said no other facility has the same capacity and expertise based at a single site. “The key thing for preparedness is how much we are doing today in peace time,” he added. “The idea is to get ready prototype vaccine capabilities to allow us to respond more quickly.”
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Health Secretary Steve Barclay said: “This new centre cements the UK’s global position spearheading pandemic preparedness, vaccine development, and scientific discovery. Hundreds of the world’s leading scientists are already in the centre working on vaccines against potential global health threats to protect the UK and save lives across the world.”
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