BRITAIN could be hit by a new killer disease any day as there are signs of a “major” outbreak “on the horizon”, an expert has warned.
Prof Mark Woolhouse, a professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh believes ‘Disease X’ is “just around the corner”.
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The threat of unknown viruses that can be transmitted to humans and potentially cause widespread epidemics is known as Disease X by WHO.
Last year they warned the next pandemic could be on the scale of the Black Death, which killed an estimated 75 million people.
It comes as Polio has been found in sewage treatment works in London and there is some evidence of transmission in a small number of people.
UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) experts believe a traveller – likely from Pakistan, Afghanistan or Nigeria – shed the virus in their stools after being given the oral polio inoculation.
But the bug has now spread to others after mutating, with the same strain being repeatedly detected in sewage samples since May.
And the UK has also seen cases of Bird flu, Lassa fever, Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever and monkeypox this year.
Prof Woolhouse believes these infections are a sign of what is to come.
He told The Telegraph: “There’s a name for what we’re seeing at the moment in the UK and elsewhere, it’s called chatter.
“It’s a term anti-terrorist [units] use to describe the small events that might signify something more major on the horizon… infectious diseases work in much the same way.”
Scientists believe the next pandemic is likely caused by “zoonotic” diseases – when infections jump from animals to humans.
Out of the 1.67million unknown viruses on the planet up to 827,000 of these could have the ability to infect people from animals, according to the EcoHealth Alliance.
South East Asia, Southern and Central Africa, areas around the Amazon, and eastern Australia were all identified as the areas of highest risk for new diseases in a study published in Nature Communications.
And as the human population swells and moves further into animal habitats, the risk of the transmission of diseases to humans grows.
The nightmare scenario is one of these new diseases, or a strain of an older one, emerges that is both highly contagious and highly deadly – allowing it to spread quickly and kill millions before the world can take action.
Prof Woolhouse continues: “The early 21st century has been a perfect storm for emerging infectious diseases, and everything is pointing towards the likelihood of more and more outbreaks.
“All the drivers of outbreaks are in fact getting worse, not better, over time.”
Brits are currently being urged to check their vaccine records to see they have been jabbed against Polio.
It is part of the NHS routine childhood vaccination schedule.
But as many try and access their records, they have been left in confusion, with GPs even struggling to understand if patients are up to date with immunisations.
It’s given as a jab when a child is 8, 12 and 16 weeks old. And two further shots are administered at 3 years and 4 months old, and at 14 years old.