The Porton Man robot has a detector mounted on its body, at the top-secret research center Porton Down, England. Photo/bbc
LONDON – The famous Porton Down facility in Wiltshire has been the site of chemical and later biological warfare experiments since the First World War.
The chemical weapons produced there included the deadly VX nerve gas and CS tear gas.
Scientists at Britain’s secret biological warfare institute are developing countermeasures against the next major pandemic.
The UK Health Safety Agency (UKHSA) laboratory at Porton Down in Wiltshire is developing prototype vaccines for various virus families.
Those in charge of the Center for Vaccine Development and Evaluation (VDEC) say the vaccines could be adapted to a hypothetical “Disease X” in a repeat of the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020 and 2021.
“We say Covid is a once-in-a-century event, but I don’t think any of us thought it would be another century until we got another one,” said UKHSA CEO Dame Jenny Harries.
He explained, “If we don’t know what Disease X is, will we be able to prepare for several families of viruses.”
Virus candidates include other variants of the Coronavirus; monkeypox which is endemic especially among gay men; the bird flu which recently wreaked havoc on the poultry industry and caused a shortage of eggs; tuberculosis that has resurfaced despite worldwide vaccination programs; and hantavirus, a disease that can be passed from rodents to humans.
2023-08-09 04:45:57
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