NEW YORK – The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has launched a national initiative to rapidly detect and monitor infectious diseases using pathogen-agnostic metagenomics.
The metagenomics Surveillance Collaboration and Analysis Programme, or mSCAPE, will be jointly led by UKHSA and a consortium of National Health Service and academic partners, according to a statement from the agency. Consortium members include the University of Birmingham, University of Edinburgh, and the NHS Clinical Respiratory Metagenomics Network led by Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust.
Under the program, labs using clinical metagenomics will contribute anonymized pathogen data that UKHSA will analyze to monitor epidemiology and detect emerging pathogens.
″The new mSCAPE program will allow us to use the UK's leading genomics capability to conduct community surveillance using pathogen-agnostic sequencing data for the first time anywhere in the world, and our new initiative to share our pathogen genomic data demonstrates our commitment to our data being used to improve health globally,″ said Susan Hopkins, the chief medical adviser at UKHSA, in a statement.
The national-level monitoring will improve identification of new outbreaks and mutations, as well as help experts make predictions about the effectiveness of potential treatments, UKHSA said.
Sue Hill, chief scientific officer for NHS England and senior responsible officer for NHS Genomics, said in the statement that the program will be offered through the NHS's Networks of Excellence in Severe Respiratory Infections.