UKHSA

UKHSA (UK Health Security Agency) is the UK Government's executive agency responsible for health protection, infectious disease surveillance, and emergency preparedness, established in April 2021 as a successor to Public Health England. Headquartered in London, it operates the UK's national public health laboratories, maintains emergency stockpiles, and coordinates outbreak responses with ECDC, WHO, and devolved health authorities in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. UKHSA publishes weekly UKHSA Influenza and COVID-19 Reports, outbreak alerts, and technical assessments that are a primary source for UK-facing pandemic coverage. Its surveillance infrastructure includes wastewater epidemiology, genomic sequencing, and national notification systems for notifiable diseases.

UKHSA coordinated the UK response to the MV Hondius Andes hantavirus cluster in May 2026, confirming 20 British nationals admitted to Arrowe Park Hospital in Wirral for 45-day isolation and assessment following exposure on the cruise. As the Andes strain is the only hantavirus with documented person-to-person transmission, UKHSA protocols required direct follow-up with household contacts of confirmed cases rather than passive surveillance. UKHSA is now monitoring mpox clade I spread on the continent: by June 2026 Mpox clade Ib was circulating locally among men who have sex with men in Europe without African travel history, the first confirmed local clade I transmission on the continent. ECDC launched a new monthly mpox surveillance report in June 2026 covering 336 clade I cases across 15 EU/EEA countries since April 2025, rating risk to the general population as low.