On a rainy day last week, I was one of a number of journalists invited to see inside the normally top-secret scientific laboratories at Porton Down, run by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA).
One of the things that struck me, as we toured the campus of the UKHSA’s Vaccine Development and Evaluation Centre (VDEC), was the referral by its deputy director Dr Bassam Hallis, to the current status of “peacetime” – as distinct, quite clearly, from the war footing of the Covid pandemic.
Having learnt the lessons of the years running up to the outbreak of Covid – when the UK and other governments prepared for a flu pandemic and little else – the UKHSA is planning for a conflict whose aggressor is not yet known.
It could be bird flu, or it could be what scientists refer to as “Disease X” – an “unknown unknown” pathogen against which there is currently no treatment or vaccine.
After being disastrously underprepared – as Lady Hallett’s Covid Inquiry is likely to conclude – for Covid, the UK Government and its scientists are keen to show they are ready for the next outbreak.
While many people would rather not think about anything to do with viruses and infectious diseases ever again after the past three years, it is reassuring that the efforts to prevent another public health catastrophe are so strenuous.
Alongside the brand new state-of-the-art VDEC labs at Porton Down, a decades-old building on the campus that was used for, among other things, testing the strength of glass test tubes before it was ripped out and refurbished in 2020 to provide extra capacity to deal with Covid, will remain a focus of the fight against the next pandemic.
Even though we are currently in “peacetime” – Covid is still infecting people, but the pandemic is technically over – more than 200 scientists at the centre are mobilising for the next war. Their work has not stopped.
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