The UK Health and Security Agency (UKHSA) has released a new watch list of 24 infectious diseases that could pose the greatest future risk to public health, aiming to guide development into diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics.
Among the high-priority pathogens are Nipah virus, mpox, and chikungunya, where the UKHSA is keen to see greater investment and scientific research. The agency emphasised that there is no ranking within the list, but each viral family in the list has a rating of high, moderate, or low pandemic and epidemic potential.
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UKHSA chief scientific officer Isabel Oliver said: “We are using the tool as part of our conversations with the scientific community, to help ensure that investment is focused to where it can have the biggest impact.
“We hope this will help to speed up vaccine and diagnostics development where it is most needed, to ensure we are fully prepared in our fight against potentially deadly pathogens.”
The watch list is part of the UK Government’s broader “pandemic preparedness” efforts. In March 2024, UKHSA partnered with the Pirbright Institute to develop vaccines against henipavirus – a group of viruses, including Nipah, that can cause severe respiratory and neurological diseases in humans through contact with infected animals.
This research, funded by the Medical Research Council, involves UKHSA scientists evaluating Pirbright’s vaccines using a Nipah virus model. There is no approved vaccine for the Nipah virus.
In August 2023, UKHSA launched the Vaccine Development Evaluation Centre (VDEC) at its Porton Down site. With more than 200 scientists working on nearly 100 projects, the facility focuses on developing vaccines against emerging threats.
Major strides have been made in vaccine development for some diseases on the UKHSA list. Mpox has seen a surge in global cases, leading the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) to declare the 2024 outbreak a public health emergency of Continental Security. Moderna is currently running a Phase I/II clinical trial (NCT05995275) in the UK for its mRNA-1769 mpox vaccine.
Chikungunya also remains a priority. Last month, Valneva’s chikungunya vaccine Ixchiq secured approval from the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), allowing the single-dose vaccine to be made available for adults. Just yesterday (24 March), Valneva announced it will supply 40,000 doses of Ixchiq to French overseas territory Réunion as part of efforts to curb the spike in disease cases on the island. In addition, a $41.3m partnership with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness (CEPI) is supporting Ixchiq’s distribution in low and middle-income countries.
The UK is not alone in prioritising pandemic preparedness. In March 2021, a coalition of world leaders, including the then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, proposed a new treaty on pandemic preparedness and response. This was later taken to the World Health Organization (WHO), where it has been debated by a newly established member state-led intergovernmental negotiation body.
The WHO has also emphasised the need to prepare for ‘Disease X’ – the term the agency coined for the next unknown infectious pathogen that could cause a future epidemic or even a pandemic. Disease X is listed alongside Zika, Covid-19, Ebola virus disease and Marburg virus disease as a priority for global investment and R&D efforts.
