UK to create world-first ‘early warning system’ for pandemics

The government is set to partner with Oxford Nanopore, which uses technology to rapidly diagnose a range of cancers, along with rare and infectious diseases.

The UK is set to create the world’s first real-time surveillance system to monitor the threat of future pandemics.

The public-private partnership is between the government and public sector bodies including Genomics England, the UK Biobank, NHS England, and the private sector’s Oxford Nanopore ─ a UK-headquartered life sciences company. 

Oxford Nanopore uses long read sequencing technology to analyse genes and pathogens to rapidly diagnose rare and infectious diseases, along with a range of cancers. The technology can sequence long strands of DNA or RNA without the need to break it into fragments.

In infectious diseases, Oxford Nanopore’s technology will be used to create the pandemic early warning system, to both prevent disease and protect the public.

It will be used in the expansion of NHS England’s Respiratory Metagenomics programme, being led by Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. It uses samples from patients with severe respiratory infections and rapid genetic testing to match those patients with the right treatments within six hours.

This novel application, which was developed in partnership with the NHS, will mean that potential outbreaks of disease ─ bacterial or viral ─ can be monitored alongside other antimicrobial resistance factors, across the UK. 

Following the successful on a pilot programme at St Thomas’ Hospital, the technology is now set to be rolled out from between 10 and 30 NHS sites. This will help to address the current time lag between new pathogens emerging in the UK and action being taken to both treat affected patients and prevent spread.

The UK’s Health and Social Care Secretary, Wes Streeting said: If we fail to prepare, we should prepare to fail. The NHS was already on its knees when the pandemic struck and was hit harder than any other comparable healthcare system [around the world].

“We cannot let history repeat itself. That is why this historic partnership with Oxford Nanopore will ensure our world-leading scientists have the latest information on emerging threats at their fingertips.”

Professor Susan Hopkins, Chief Medical Advisor at the UK Health Security Agency, added: “Early detection is absolutely crucial in enabling us to respond effectively to any emerging pathogen. The UK already has a wealth of expertise in genomic surveillance, and this programme will build on that expertise and enable us to bring our resources and capability to tackle developing threats at greater speed.”

Gordon Sanghera, CEO of Oxford Nanopore concluded: “The world-renowned Genomics England and UK Biobank have led the way in scaling genomics discovery and translating these advances into patient impact.

“By working alongside our partners on shared goals of improved patient outcomes - whether in cancer, genetic disease or infectious disease ─ and [now] pandemic preparedness ─ we believe we can deploy our unique DNA sequencing technology in ways that are most impactful for the people of the UK.”

--www.gov.uk