Latest news with #Woolhouse
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
UK draws up new disease-threat watch list
The UK has a new watch list of 24 infectious diseases that could pose the greatest future threat to public health. Some are viruses with global pandemic potential - like Covid - while others are illnesses that have no existing treatments or could cause significant harm. Avian, or bird, flu is on the list, as well as mosquito-spread illnesses that may become common with rising temperatures from climate change, according to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA). The aim is to steer scientists and investors into making new tests and vaccines or medicines in preparation. There is no ranking within the list, since threats constantly change, UKHSA chief scientific officer Prof Isabel Oliver says. And it will be updated at least once a year, to avoid a repeat of the Covid pandemic, where experts had been planning for an entirely different outbreak - influenza. "When Covid arrived, it took too long to adjust our response to a different threat, which was part of the reason we ended up in lockdown," Prof Mark Woolhouse, director of the Tackling Infections to Benefit Africa, University of Edinburgh, said. "Since the pandemic, there have been many initiatives to better understand the diversity of pandemic threats that the UK and the world may face in the coming years. "The UKHSA's pathogen prioritisation exercise is a welcome contribution to this global effort." A family of viruses called Paramyxoviridae, which includes measles, is on the list. And this was the type of pandemic threat public-health agencies around the world were most worried about, Prof Woolhouse said. A novel measles-like virus would be highly spreadable and "impossible to control by even the strictest lockdown", making it "a threat far worse than Covid." "It would also be considerably more deadly and, unlike Covid, it would be a [major] threat to children," Prof Woolhouse said. Prof Oliver said the UKHSA would consult animal-health colleagues for future updates, since many new and emerging outbreaks were zoonotic disease that jumped species to infect humans. Some bacteria also feature, including those such as gonorrohoea where resistance to existing antibiotic treatments is becoming an issue. Adenovirus Lassa fever Norovirus Mers Ebola (and similar viruses, such as Marburg) Flaviviridae (which includes dengue, Zika and hepatitis C) Hantavirus Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever Flu (non-seasonal, including avian) Nipah virus Oropouche Rift Valley fever Acute flaccid myelitis Human metapneumovirus (HMPV) Mpox Chikungunya Anthrax Q fever Enterobacteriaceae (such as E. coli and Yersinia pestis, which causes plague) Tularaemia Moraxellaceae (which cause lung, urine and bloodstream infections) Gonorrhoea Staplylococcus Group A and B Strep
BBC News
25-03-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Priority pathogens: UK draws up new disease-threat watch list
The UK has a new watch list of 24 infectious diseases that could pose the greatest future threat to public health. Some are viruses with global pandemic potential - like Covid - while others are illnesses that have no existing treatments or could cause significant harm. Avian, or bird, flu is on the list, as well as mosquito-spread illnesses that may become common with rising temperatures from climate change, according to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA). The aim is to steer scientists and investors into making new tests and vaccines or medicines in preparation. 'Global effort' There is no ranking within the list, since threats constantly change, UKHSA chief scientific officer Prof Isabel Oliver says. And it will be updated at least once a year, to avoid a repeat of the Covid pandemic, where experts had been planning for an entirely different outbreak - influenza. "When Covid arrived, it took too long to adjust our response to a different threat, which was part of the reason we ended up in lockdown," Prof Mark Woolhouse, director of the Tackling Infections to Benefit Africa, University of Edinburgh, said."Since the pandemic, there have been many initiatives to better understand the diversity of pandemic threats that the UK and the world may face in the coming years. "The UKHSA's pathogen prioritisation exercise is a welcome contribution to this global effort." 'Highly spreadable' A family of viruses called Paramyxoviridae, which includes measles, is on the this was the type of pandemic threat public-health agencies around the world were most worried about, Prof Woolhouse said.A novel measles-like virus would be highly spreadable and "impossible to control by even the strictest lockdown", making it "a threat far worse than Covid." "It would also be considerably more deadly and, unlike Covid, it would be a [major] threat to children," Prof Woolhouse Oliver said the UKHSA would consult animal-health colleagues for future updates, since many new and emerging outbreaks were zoonotic disease that jumped species to infect humans. Some bacteria also feature, including those such as gonorrohoea where resistance to existing antibiotic treatments is becoming an issue. The list of 24 diseases or pathogens AdenovirusLassa feverNorovirusMersEbola (and similar viruses, such as Marburg)Flaviviridae (which includes dengue, Zika and hepatitis C)HantavirusCrimean-Congo haemorrhagic feverFlu (non-seasonal, including avian)Nipah virusOropoucheRift Valley feverAcute flaccid myelitisHuman metapneumovirus (HMPV)MpoxChikungunyaAnthraxQ feverEnterobacteriaceae (such as E. coli and Yersinia pestis, which causes plague)TularaemiaMoraxellaceae (which cause lung, urine and bloodstream infections)GonorrhoeaStaplylococcusGroup A and B Strep
Telegraph
24-03-2025
- Health
- Telegraph
Covid lockdown unnecessary as virus was under control, says senior adviser
Britain did not need to enter lockdown because Covid was 'already under control', according to a senior government adviser on the fifth anniversary of the first national shutdown. Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at Edinburgh University, said that measures such as mask-wearing and staying in family groups had been 'enough'. He claimed that statisticians had examined the data 'and it's now quite clear that the virus was already under control before lockdown came into place' on March 23, 2020, thanks to changes in public behaviour. Prof Woolhouse called lockdown 'an overreaction' caused by panic, and suggested it would not have been necessary if Boris Johnson and Nicola Sturgeon's governments had made the right preparations. The strategy of locking down to protect the NHS from being overwhelmed had also failed, he argued, as 'we basically closed our health system' for treating all non-Covid conditions. He lambasted the decision to close schools, arguing that it was 'necessary at no stage during the epidemic', and the impact on children, especially from poorer families, had been 'just extraordinary'. Prof Woolhouse was an adviser to the Scottish Government during the pandemic and sat on the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling, a sub-group of the UK Government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage). He had previously accused Ms Sturgeon's government of failing to understand the 'underlying epidemiology' of the disease, citing their 'naive' belief that easing lockdown restrictions more slowly than Mr Johnson would prevent another wave. The academic, who has recently written a book called The Year the World Went Mad: A Scientific Memoir, said that a lockdown 'wasn't inevitable' to control the virus. 'What caused it was the lack of preparation in the weeks and months leading up to lockdown,' Prof Woolhouse told BBC Radio Scotland. 'We didn't anticipate in time the enormity of the event or of the response needed and that's something we have to fix in the future.' He said he had been 'raising the alarm' from mid January 2020 'but somehow that concern didn't get translated through the government advisory system... into a strong call for action in February'. A a result, when the virus 'really took off' in March, the necessary groundwork had not been done to prevent a lockdown, he said. Describing the early months as a time of dithering and panic, he said: 'In the end, lockdown was clearly an overreaction to the event. We had to do something, but that something didn't have to be as severe.' He argued that earlier, less drastic action had been needed: 'It turns out that the measures we took in the first half of March enough (to avoid lockdown), but no one knew that at the time. 'We didn't have the surveillance, the testing, the genomics and all those bits of information gathering that we need to assess the state of the virus.' When asked if people wearing masks and staying in family groups had been enough without lockdown being required, he said: 'Oh, it was enough in hindsight. 'The analysis of data from that crucial period throughout March shows quite clearly that the virus was already under control before lockdown came into place. 'It was under control because people had taken their own precautions, that we'd all changed our behaviour.' Prof Woolhouse emphasised that the elderly and frail were at 'vastly increased risk' from the virus but not children. 'We had some data from China, but we didn't have enough for everyone to feel confident that we could get through this without closing schools. 'With hindsight, we could have got through it without closing schools, and in my view, we should have opened them much earlier than we did in 2020, in May, for example, when Denmark opened its schools. We didn't fully open them until August, and the damage that has been done to that generation is just extraordinary, and it's still accumulating now.' He said the poorest children suffered most, adding: 'This is the crucial thing, this wasn't necessary... It was necessary at no stage during the epidemic, and yet, we did it.' Asked whether lockdown had succeeded in its aim of protecting the NHS, he said he had recently asked senior physicians at Edinburgh's Western General Hospital. 'Their answer was interesting. It was no. And the reason it was no is because, although we coped in Scotland with Covid patients, we didn't cope with all the other needs,' Prof Woolhouse said. 'We basically closed our health system to all those other non-Covid harms, and we weren't able to keep those operations running.'
The Independent
24-03-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Staying prepared for future pandemics ‘absolutely vital'
It is absolutely vital that scientists and governments keep preparations 'alive and well' in case of any future pandemic, an epidemiologist has said. Professor Mark Woolhouse said it is important to keep the memory of the last pandemic alive to ensure readiness for what might happen in the future. The University of Edinburgh academic was speaking on the fifth anniversary of the UK going into the first lockdown on March 24 2020. In an interview on BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme, Prof Woolhouse was asked whether lessons have been learned from the pandemic and whether we are prepared for another. He said: 'My view, and the view of the public health community generally, is that memories are short, but if you think about it, very few of the politicians who were in power, who were making decisions during the pandemic are still there, and some of them weren't even in ministerial posts, so they don't have the memory the academic institutions do, the public health bodies do, but we really need to keep that memory alive.' Prof Woolhouse, who advised the Scottish Government during the pandemic, said there is still a lot of discussion about related topics in Scotland and described how pandemic response is still 'ticking over' in the scientific community. He said the chief medical officer chaired a meeting last week at the Royal Society of Edinburgh where issues such as pandemic preparedness and what Scotland could do better in the future were discussed. Prof Woolhouse joined the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M-O), a sub-group of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), in 2020. The professor of infectious disease epidemiology said it is important the issue of pandemics is not forgotten, adding: 'It is absolutely vital that the scientists and the public health agencies and the machinery of government are still thinking about it and still keeping the preparedness and preparations alive and well.' Public Health Minister Jenni Minto said: 'Our deepest sympathies go out to all those who have lost a loved one to Covid-19. 'Health boards continue to offer vaccination for Covid, and I urge all those who are eligible to protect themselves when the next vaccination round opens in the spring. 'We also take the issue of long Covid very seriously and recognise the impact it can have on the health and wellbeing of those affected, which is why since April 2022 we have allocated more than £6.8 million to health boards to support their response to long Covid. 'The 2025/26 budget also includes new investment of £4.5 million to deliver specialist support across the country for long Covid, chronic fatigue and other similar conditions. 'There remains a great deal to be learned about long Covid, which is why we are contributing to the worldwide research effort to better understand the condition. 'Our Chief Scientist Office has awarded around £3.1 million for 11 projects considering its long-term effects.'
Yahoo
24-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Staying prepared for future pandemics ‘absolutely vital'
It is absolutely vital that scientists and governments keep preparations 'alive and well' in case of any future pandemic, an epidemiologist has said. Professor Mark Woolhouse said it is important to keep the memory of the last pandemic alive to ensure readiness for what might happen in the future. The University of Edinburgh academic was speaking on the fifth anniversary of the UK going into the first lockdown on March 24 2020. In an interview on BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme, Prof Woolhouse was asked whether lessons have been learned from the pandemic and whether we are prepared for another. He said: 'My view, and the view of the public health community generally, is that memories are short, but if you think about it, very few of the politicians who were in power, who were making decisions during the pandemic are still there, and some of them weren't even in ministerial posts, so they don't have the memory the academic institutions do, the public health bodies do, but we really need to keep that memory alive.' Prof Woolhouse, who advised the Scottish Government during the pandemic, said there is still a lot of discussion about related topics in Scotland and described how pandemic response is still 'ticking over' in the scientific community. He said the chief medical officer chaired a meeting last week at the Royal Society of Edinburgh where issues such as pandemic preparedness and what Scotland could do better in the future were discussed. Prof Woolhouse joined the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M-O), a sub-group of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), in 2020. The professor of infectious disease epidemiology said it is important the issue of pandemics is not forgotten, adding: 'It is absolutely vital that the scientists and the public health agencies and the machinery of government are still thinking about it and still keeping the preparedness and preparations alive and well.' Public Health Minister Jenni Minto said: 'Our deepest sympathies go out to all those who have lost a loved one to Covid-19. 'Health boards continue to offer vaccination for Covid, and I urge all those who are eligible to protect themselves when the next vaccination round opens in the spring. 'We also take the issue of long Covid very seriously and recognise the impact it can have on the health and wellbeing of those affected, which is why since April 2022 we have allocated more than £6.8 million to health boards to support their response to long Covid. 'The 2025/26 budget also includes new investment of £4.5 million to deliver specialist support across the country for long Covid, chronic fatigue and other similar conditions. 'There remains a great deal to be learned about long Covid, which is why we are contributing to the worldwide research effort to better understand the condition. 'Our Chief Scientist Office has awarded around £3.1 million for 11 projects considering its long-term effects.' The UK Government has been approached for comment.
