The United Kingdom wants to use genomic surveillance to prevent future pandemics

[Alfonso Maruccia]

Forward-looking: The UK's National Health Service was hit particularly hard during the COVID pandemic, so authorities are now trying to batten the hatches. A new plan is in motion to detect and discover the next pandemic agent before it can spread and shut the country down again.

The UK Government recently announced a new public-private collaboration to develop the world's first early warning system for pandemic diseases. The publicly funded National Health Service (NHS) will partner with Oxford Nanopore, a UK-based company that developed a novel solution for DNA sequencing, to uncover dangerous infections within hours of an outbreak.

The new partnership involves the NHS, Oxford Nanopore, Genomics England, and UK Biobank. The sequencing system created by Oxford Nanopore is the core element of the whole initiative, as it allows researchers and physicians to analyze genes and pathogens very quickly.

The technology uses nanoscopic pores in thin protein membranes, letting a single strand of DNA pass through for analysis without breaking it into smaller fragments. The system can identify individual nucleotides in real-time, with 99 percent accuracy under "ideal" conditions. Oxford Nanopore's methods can rapidly diagnose various cancers and rare and infectious diseases.

The NHS wants to use Oxford Nanopore's tech to reliably diagnose patients with symptoms of acute respiratory infections within six hours. They hope this diagnostic system will allow UK authorities to monitor viral diseases and antimicrobial resistance and enable the NHS to complete its ongoing digitalization process.

Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting said the NHS was already on its knees when the Covid-19 pandemic struck, so it suffered more than comparable healthcare systems.

"We cannot let history repeat itself," Streeting said. "That's why this historic partnership with Oxford Nanopore will ensure our world-leading scientists have the latest information on emerging threats at their fingertips."

This new real-time sequencing technology has already been successful in tests at St Thomas' Hospital. It will now roll out to 10 to 30 NHS sites across the UK. Oxford Nanopore will work with disease data provided by Genomics England to enhance genomic surveillance and sequencing. Meanwhile, UK Biobank will continue to share its data with Oxford Nanopore and the government.

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The United Kingdom wants to use genomic surveillance to prevent future pandemics

 

[Karlos95]

"Safe and effective"

 

[seeprime]

With pandemics being somewhat rare, I can't imagine the public would want to fund this "early warning system" which could be abused as a means of steering the population into group think and a degree of control, unless it's proven to never show false positives.

 

[Inthenstus]

Hmm, what are they going to do? Hook it up to the sewage system next and monitor everyone’s DNA? What a time to be alive.

 

[Dany85]

A significant step forward! The COVID pandemic really underscored the need for faster diagnostics and surveillance, so it’s promising to see the NHS teaming up with Oxford Nanopore and others to develop a real-time detection system. If the tech can diagnose infections within six hours, that’s a game-changer for early intervention and could keep future outbreaks from spiraling out of control.

And it's cool to hear that the sequencing tech has already shown success in trials at St. Thomas’ Hospital. If it proves reliable, this system might become a key defense against viral threats, antimicrobial resistance, and beyond

 

[Cocojambo13]

Yea, dont hold your breath on this. NHS is a joke.

 

[Jim Lahey]

And I’m sure it will be only used for our benefit, not to treat people like cattle, right?

No thanks.

 

[Underdog]

One reason Covid hit so many people is that even when it was widely recognised nobody thought to limit international travel. Planeloads of infected people travelled out to China to Europe weeks after it was declared a pandemic. Virtually no effort was made to limit international travel. Too much profit to be lost, I guess.

 

[Plutoisaplanet]

A significant step forward! The COVID pandemic really underscored the need for faster diagnostics and surveillance, so it’s promising to see the NHS teaming up with Oxford Nanopore and others to develop a real-time detection system. If the tech can diagnose infections within six hours, that’s a game-changer for early intervention and could keep future outbreaks from spiraling out of control.

And it's cool to hear that the sequencing tech has already shown success in trials at St. Thomas’ Hospital. If it proves reliable, this system might become a key defense against viral threats, antimicrobial resistance, and beyond

The last time there was a real pandemic like Covid was over 100 years ago. The only exception is AIDS but it has limited transmissibility. I don't think we need to resort to drastic measures in fear of disease.