The UK super lab ready for...DISEASEX

AFTER the devastation caused by Covid-19, our scientists have stepped up their efforts to stop the next big pandemic crippling the UK.

- MARTIN BAGOT

And key to their work is a new superlaboratory, 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 lockPorton Down Science Campus 5 downs. Dame Jenny added: "We say Covid was a once-in-a-century man Martin at Porton Down event but I don't think any of us think it will be another century until we get another one.

"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"

Scientists at the 7,000-acre Porton Down site were among the first to create biological weapons in the last century.