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The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) have published a report alleging that the government are “not prioritising significant threat” from animal diseases like COVID-19, avian flu, swine fever.
Dr Doug Brown, Chief Executive of the British Society for Immunology, said:
“Infectious diseases in livestock and wild animals pose a significant and ongoing risk to food security and human health, both within the UK and beyond our borders. Over the past few years, we have seen a variety of new diseases emerge that have jumped from animals to humans, such as COVID-19 or avian flu, which have had catastrophic consequences and cost many billions of pounds to tackle.
“The UK has a rich legacy of cutting-edge veterinary immunology research, supported by our innovative biotechnology industry. This research has led to the development of veterinary vaccines and treatments that have been deployed all over the world, but it has also underpinned critical work on human vaccines, such as those developed against COVID-19.
“For some time, our world-leading research position has been threatened by a lack of strategic long-term investment in the research, skills, collaborations and infrastructure that are necessary to develop and commercialise this veterinary immunology research within the UK. By investing in the prevention and treatment of animal diseases, we can unlock significant economic benefits for the UK through improving the efficiency of farming, reducing the burden of livestock lost to disease, not to mention protecting against future zoonotic disease outbreaks.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us that the UK cannot afford to ignore the threat posed by infectious diseases in animals, especially those with the potential to jump from animals to humans. By investing in veterinary immunology research and infrastructure today, we will be better prepared to respond to emerging disease threats in the future.”
Prof Martin Hibberd, Professor of Emerging Infectious Disease, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), said:
“This site has been key to understanding animal diseases over many decades. Without it, the UK is certainly at risk of being vulnerable to importing or succumbing to, infections that would have serious impacts on animal health and, as we have repeatedly seen, human health as well. Specialist knowledge and facilities are required to cope with changing infection scenarios. What would happen if the current bird-flu virus, that is widely affecting the UK, mutated, and began changing its animal or human infection profile? The UK needs to have the ability to respond and give science-based evidence for informed choices”. This requires adequately funded facilities and expert, experienced staff, that could prevent much larger losses”
Dr Doug Brown, Chief Executive of the British Society for Immunology, said:
“Infectious diseases in livestock and wild animals pose a significant and ongoing risk to food security and human health, both within the UK and beyond our borders. Over the past few years, we have seen a variety of new diseases emerge that have jumped from animals to humans, such as COVID-19 or avian flu, which have had catastrophic consequences and cost many billions of pounds to tackle.
“The UK has a rich legacy of cutting-edge veterinary immunology research, supported by our innovative biotechnology industry. This research has led to the development of veterinary vaccines and treatments that have been deployed all over the world, but it has also underpinned critical work on human vaccines, such as those developed against COVID-19.
“For some time, our world-leading research position has been threatened by a lack of strategic long-term investment in the research, skills, collaborations and infrastructure that are necessary to develop and commercialise this veterinary immunology research within the UK. By investing in the prevention and treatment of animal diseases, we can unlock significant economic benefits for the UK through improving the efficiency of farming, reducing the burden of livestock lost to disease, not to mention protecting against future zoonotic disease outbreaks.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us that the UK cannot afford to ignore the threat posed by infectious diseases in animals, especially those with the potential to jump from animals to humans. By investing in veterinary immunology research and infrastructure today, we will be better prepared to respond to emerging disease threats in the future.”
Prof Martin Hibberd, Professor of Emerging Infectious Disease, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), said:
“This site has been key to understanding animal diseases over many decades. Without it, the UK is certainly at risk of being vulnerable to importing or succumbing to, infections that would have serious impacts on animal health and, as we have repeatedly seen, human health as well. Specialist knowledge and facilities are required to cope with changing infection scenarios. What would happen if the current bird-flu virus, that is widely affecting the UK, mutated, and began changing its animal or human infection profile? The UK needs to have the ability to respond and give science-based evidence for informed choices”. This requires adequately funded facilities and expert, experienced staff, that could prevent much larger losses”
Prof Paul Wigley, Professor of Animal Microbial Ecosystems at University of Bristol, said:
“Covid highlighted the potential risk to human health, society and the economy that a zoonotic disease can bring. We are currently living through an unprecedented outbreak of avian influenza that is threatening the poultry industry which itself has potential to jump to other species including us, and it’s little more than 20 years since foot and mouth disease brought the horrific spectre of bonfires of animal carcasses to our countryside.”
“Animal and zoonotic disease, coupled with the threat of antimicrobial resistance, are a constant threat that need constant vigilance and surveillance. For decades the APHA facilities at Weybridge have been central to our ability to diagnose and control these threats. Underfunding of animal health services and research has been an increasing problem not just at APHA but through the sector.”
“Weybridge has always been a central resource of facilities and people. It has been placed in a perilous position by underfunding and crumbling facilities and has relied far too much on the dedication and excellence of APHA staff. Without support it is increasingly unlikely the UK could cope with another major outbreak of animal or zoonotic disease along with the ongoing avian influenza epidemic.”
“The PAC are right to highlight the long-term problems and the urgency in providing the support needed. The potential of an outbreak is always around the next corner. Another outbreak of Foot and Mouth or the introduction of Classical Swine Fever could lead to the collapse of major farming sectors in the UK. I fear we no longer have the capacity or tools to deal with such an outbreak. Investment is vital to protect both public and animal health”
Prof James Wood, Head of Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Cambridge, said:
“The steady decline of the facilities at Weybridge has been evident to those working in them over many years. The importance of maintaining facilities has been apparent to everyone, not just following the devastating FMDV epidemic in 2001, but particularly following the 2007 outbreak in Surrey which was attributed to a lab leak from the dilapidated Pirbright facilities.”
“The laboratories at Weybridge are central to the UK’s ability to control an incursion of animal diseases and to its ability to detect any new emerging animal pathogen that might develop into a pandemic infection. COVID-19 exemplifies the global threat from such infections. We can no longer be reliant on laboratory resources from partner European laboratories. The significance of laboratories is demonstrated clearly by their central role in the diagnosis and control of the ongoing unprecedented avian influenza outbreak.”
“The current major Weybridge redevelopment programme is very welcome and important but it will take many years to be implemented and there are risks of laboratory failure occurring in the meantime, including during an outbreak response although the excellent staff at the agency are remarkably resilient at developing contingency responses and finding appropriate ‘work arounds’.”
Dr Michael Skinner, Emeritus Professor in Virology, Imperial College London, said:
“Although the inquiry into the COVID-19 pandemic has only just started, I am probably not the only one to believe that a crucial factor was the failure of government to maintain adequate pandemic preparations after about 2011. One glaring consequence of this was that new developments in molecular testing and automation were not considered for integration into early responses, leaving the UK more exposed than some countries, especially in SE Asia, leading to the desperate scramble to build testing capacity up to levels much higher than would have been required had they been available at the beginning of the pandemic. The pandemic also showed us that while pandemic preparation, like military defence preparation, is expensive, it comes far, far cheaper than the costs of a pandemic.
“Preparations for outbreak testing have arguably remained at a higher level of readiness in the veterinary sector. This is partly due to a high level of routine testing for notifiable diseases, such as bovine TB, avian influenza and avian Newcastle disease virus, plus a wide range of other exotic diseases that pose ongoing threats to UK agriculture. That readiness is also because the DEFRA-funded APHA laboratory at Weybridge has, at least since the 2001 foot and mouth disease (FMD) outbreak, recognised the need to redeploy its own skilled staff from routine activities to support outbreak testing, such as during the current H5N1 bird flu outbreak in wild birds and poultry. During the 2001 FMD outbreak, they also pulled in skilled scientists from the arms-length, Government-funded, academic animal disease research institutes (now represented by the Pirbright and Roslin Institutes, but at the time by the Institute for Animal Health).
“The academic research institutes (particularly Pirbright), funded for ongoing research by competitive grants from the research councils, have been modernised within the last couple of decades, enabling them not only to conduct research into animal disease threats (such as African swine fever and blue tongue disease) but also playing key roles alongside UKHSA’s Porton Down laboratory, the Francis Crick Institute and various university research groups during the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing monkeypox outbreak.
“Funded directly by DEFRA, APHA can be very much seen as the fire brigade countering animal disease threats. During ‘peacetime’ their routine testing, as well as work on policy, safety measures and education, helps keep the country, and its food supplies, safe from incursions and spread of those diseases. The capacity, capability and expertise maintained through ‘peacetime’ allows the surge capacity that is rapidly required to get on top of a new outbreak to control it as quickly as possible and limit the overall costs.
“The nature of the work at APHA requires high tech facilities and a skilled work force. Because the viruses and bacteria pose a threat to livestock animals they have to be handled in biosecure containment. Many of the biological agents, as zoonotic pathogens, also pose a threat to humans so they also need to be handled in a biosafe manner. We’re probably all aware of the threats to humans posed by H5N1 bird flu and bovine TB but there is increasing concern that ‘reverse zoonosis’ of COVID-19 into wild, companion or even livestock animals might add to the future workload of APHA and pose another threat to us all (think back to the well-justified concerns about COVID-19 in famed mink in Denmark and Spain).
“PAC recommends that recognition of the risks posed by animal disease, either directly to food security or as zoonotic infections, should be enhanced in the National Risk Register (*). Failing to maintain the capacity of APHA to respond to current and likely future threats therefore risks re-running the failures of preparation we saw in pandemic planning in the lead up to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Public Accounts Committee report ‘alleging Government “not prioritising significant threat” from animal diseases’ was published at 00:01 UK time on Wednesday 16th November.
Declared interests
Prof James Wood sits on the Science Advisory Board of APHA and has collaborated with APHA scientists over the last 15 years on avian and swine influenza, rabies and other emerging infectious diseases. He gave evidence to the recent NAO enquiry into the agency.
Dr Michael Skinner: “I have no financial or commercial conflicts of interest, nor any direct links with DFEFRA or APHA.”
Prof Martin Hibberd: “I do not have any conflicts to declare.”
Dr Doug Brown is a Trustee of the Association of Medical Research Charities.
For all other experts, no reply to our request for DOIs was received.