UK Prepares for 'Disease X' in Virus Lab at Top-Secret Germ Warfare Centre

The notorious Porton Down facility in Wiltshire has been the site of experiments with chemical — and later biological — warfare since the First World War. Chemical weapons produced there included the deadly VX nerve gas and CS teargas.

Scientists at the UK's top-secret biological warfare establishment are developing counter-measures to the next big pandemic.

A UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) laboratory at Porton Down in Wiltshire is developing prototype vaccines for a range of virus families.

Those in charge of the Vaccine Development and Evaluation Centre (VDEC) say those jabs could be adapted to a hypothetical "Disease X" in a repeat of the COVID-19 epidemic of 2020 and 2021.

"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," said UKHSA chief executive Dame Jenny Harries. "If we don’t know what Disease X, is we can get ready for some virus families."

The candidate viruses include other variants of Coronavirus; monkeypox, which saw an outbreak mainly among gay men; avian influenza, which has recently wreaked havoc on the poultry industry and caused a shortage of eggs; tuberculosis, which is returning despite worldwide vaccination programmes; and hantavirus, a disease that can be passed from rodents to human beings.

But one of the most ominous diseases under study at Porton Down is Crimean–Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF), which has a terrifying mortality rate of around 30 per cent and is spread by ticks, the biting arachnid parasite common in woodlands.

A 62-year-old Spanish man died of CCHF contracted from a tick bite in August 2016, after infecting a nurse. A larger outbreak occurred in Pakistan the same month. Turkiye reported thousands of cases between 2008 and 2017, albeit with a reduced mortality rate, while an outbreak occurred in the former French Wets African colony of Mali in 2020.

Importantly, genetic markers of the CCHF have been found in ticks from the New Forest, 10 miles south of Porton Down.

"We hope we will be better prepared to prevent something escalating to a pandemic," Harries said. "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."

Porton Down is better-known as the centre of British chemical warfare research since 1916 during the First World War. The nerve gas agent VX was developed there in 1952, along with CS teargas. The establishment has also long conducted research into germ warfare and common ailments such as the cold.