A lab technician uses a pipette device to process samples to test the new Covid-19 coronavirus at the Biogroup Laboratory in West London on 21 January 2021.
JUSTIN TALLIS | AFP | Getty Images
LONDON – The United Kingdom has established plans to create a new national health safety agency to plan, prevent and respond to “future external health threats, such as infectious diseases”.
The “UK Health Security Agency” must lead the way in protecting against future health threats and “ensuring that the nation can respond quickly and on a larger scale to deal with pandemics and future threats,” the government announced on Wednesday.
The agency will be led by Dr. Jenny Harries, an authority who became a familiar face to the British public during the coronavirus pandemic, as England’s deputy chief physician. Harries often participated in televised briefings alongside government officials during the pandemic.
The UK reflected on a difficult year of coronavirus blockages and losses on Tuesday, a year after the first blockade was imposed on 23 March 2020. Since then, more than 4.3 million people have contracted the virus in across the country, with more than 125,000 deaths – making it one of the hardest hit countries in the world.
A positive point was the rapid implementation of vaccination in the country, which started in December. To date, more than 28.3 million adults in the UK have received the first dose of a coronavirus vaccine. Last Saturday, a record 844,285 doses of vaccine were delivered in a single day.
Health officials point out that there is no room for complacency, despite the scheduling of easing new restrictions on public life. More infectious variants of the virus are spreading around the world and the UK’s continental neighbors in continental Europe are also facing a third wave of infections.
As elsewhere, there is a consensus among British officials that the country needs to be better prepared to deal with any future pandemics and what it calls “external” health threats.
UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock said he wants “everyone at UKHSA, at all levels, to wake up every day with zeal to plan the next pandemic.” Covid-19, he said, “showed that the challenges of protecting the country’s health are changing at an unprecedented pace as new types of threats emerge.”
The government said the new body, which will take effect in April, replacing the National Institute for Health Protection, will be “the UK’s leader in health security, providing intellectual, scientific and operational leadership at national and local level, as well as on the global stage. “
The primary focus of the UKHSA in its early stages will be the ongoing fight against the coronavirus pandemic, the government said. It will also continue to bring together agencies and experts that were deployed during the coronavirus crisis, such as the UK’s respected genomic surveillance capabilities and its contact tracking network.