Digital health editor, BBC News<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The UK has a new watch list of 24 infectious diseases that could pose the greatest future threat to public health. <\/p>\n Some are viruses with global pandemic potential – like Covid – while others are illnesses that have no existing treatments or could cause significant harm. <\/p>\n 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). <\/p>\n The aim is to steer scientists and investors into making new tests and vaccines or medicines in preparation. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n There is no ranking within the list, since threats constantly change, UKHSA chief scientific officer Prof Isabel Oliver says. <\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n “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.<\/p>\n “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. <\/p>\n “The UKHSA’s pathogen prioritisation exercise is a welcome contribution to this global effort.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n A family of viruses called Paramyxoviridae, which includes measles, is on the list.<\/p>\n And this was the type of pandemic threat public-health agencies around the world were most worried about, Prof Woolhouse said.<\/p>\n 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.” <\/p>\n “It would also be considerably more deadly and, unlike Covid, it would be a [major] threat to children,” Prof Woolhouse said.<\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n Some bacteria also feature, including those such as gonorrohoea where resistance to existing antibiotic treatments is becoming an issue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"Getty](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/c0a9\/live\/bf9cfe60-08c2-11f0-bd8a-514f22c23b84.jpg.webp\")
Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n‘Global effort’<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
‘Highly spreadable’<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
The list of 24 diseases or pathogens<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n