British scientists are already developing a vaccine for the next pandemic of Disease X.

A group of about 200 British researchers are developing a vaccine to try to bring the next pandemic under control. The work is being done at the High Security Government Laboratory Complex at Porton Down in Wiltshire.

In accordance with sky newsScientists have compiled a list of threats from animal viruses that can infect humans, but it is not yet known which of them will provoke a new pandemic. For this reason, they named it “Disease X”. “What we’re trying to do here is make sure we’re prepared so that if we have a new Disease X, a new pathogen, we’ve done as much work as possible up front. Hope we can avoid this. [uma pandemia]. But if we don’t succeed and we have to react, then we have already started developing vaccines and therapeutics to combat this,” said Professor Jenny Harris, director of the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA). Sky News.

The Vaccine Development and Evaluation Center at Porton Down, formerly involved in the fight against Covid-19, has been expanded to carry out this work.

One of the team’s early successes is the development of the first vaccine against Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, a tick-borne disease with a 30% mortality rate. This and other diseases are becoming more common in Europe as global temperatures rise, which also increases the likelihood of a new pandemic, says Professor Jenny Harris. Sky News.

“This is partly due to factors such as urbanization, when the virus can jump to people. [que vivem perto]as happened with bird flu. And the other part has to do with climate change, when things like ticks and mosquitoes move to places that used to be cold and are now getting hotter and hotter,” he explains.