Britain has a new watch list of 24 infectious diseases that could pose the greatest future threat to public health, the aim being to steer scientists and investors into making new tests and vaccines or medicines in preparation.
The BBC reports that some are viruses with global pandemic potential, like Covid, while others are illnesses that have no existing treatments or could cause significant harm.
Avian, or bird, flu is on the list, as well as mosquito-spread illnesses that may become common with rising temperatures from climate change, according to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), with Chief Scientific Officer Prof Isabel Oliver saying there is no ranking on the list, as threats change constantly.
The list will be updated at least annually to avoid a repeat of the Covid pandemic, where experts had been planning for an entirely different outbreak – influenza.
“When Covid arrived, it took too long to adjust our response to a different threat, which was part of the reason we ended up in lockdown,” said Prof Mark Woolhouse, director of the Tackling Infections to Benefit Africa, University of Edinburgh.
“Since then, there have been many initiatives to better understand the diversity of pandemic threats that the world may face in the coming years.
“The UKHSA’s pathogen prioritisation exercise is a welcome contribution to this global effort.”
‘Highly spreadable’
A family of viruses called Paramyxoviridae, which includes measles, is on the list, and this was the type of pandemic threat public-health agencies around the world were most worried about, Woolhouse said.
A novel measles-like virus would be highly spreadable and “impossible to control by even the strictest lockdown”, making it “a threat far worse than Covid, and more deadly”.
“Unlike Covid, it would be a major threat to children,” he added.
Oliver said the UKHSA would consult animal-health colleagues for future updates, since many new and emerging outbreaks were zoonotic disease that jumped species to infect humans.
Some bacteria also feature, including those like gonorrohoea, where resistance to existing antibiotic treatments is becoming an issue.
The list of 24 diseases or pathogens:
• Adenovirus
• Lassa fever
• Norovirus
• Mers
• Ebola (and similar viruses, like Marburg)
• Flaviviridae (which includes dengue, Zika and hepatitis C)
• Hantavirus
• Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever
• Flu (non-seasonal, including avian)
• Nipah virus
• Oropouche
• Rift Valley fever
• Acute flaccid myelitis
• Human metapneumovirus (HMPV)
• Mpox
• Chikungunya
• Anthrax
• Q fever
• Enterobacteriaceae (such as E. coli and Yersinia pestis, which causes plague)
• Tularaemia
• Moraxellaceae (which cause lung, urine and bloodstream infections)
• Gonorrhoea
• Staphlylococcus
• Group A and B Strep
BBC article – UK draws up new disease-threat watch list (Open access)
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