Imperial College London, who have been central to the fight against COVID-19, featured in a BBC “Pandemic” documentary two years ago, which carried out a theoretical study mapping-out what the next outbreak could look like. Led by Dr Hannah Fry, the experiment started in Haslemere, Surrey, where almost 500 people downloaded an app and got on with their daily lives to expose how easily a small town can be “infected” by super-spreaders. Dr Fry played “patient zero”, where she walked around the town completing everyday tasks like going to a yoga class, grabbing a coffee and visiting a local shop.

She would “infect” those she came into prolonged contact with. Other users of the app also carried out the test, with their results collated.

Then, 29,000 others downloaded the same app nationwide, and the virtual virus reached 43 million Britons, killing 886,000 in a matter of months, inspiring the team to find a way to prevent such numbers in the future.

Dr Fry said in 2018: “Our app allowed us to identify super-spreaders in Haslemere, but in the real world, people who work in busy places like schools could also be super-spreaders.

“Deciding who to vaccine first with the greatest effect is problematic, but there could be a way of identifying individual super-spreaders before a contagion.

That would be a revolution in pandemic prevention

Dr Hannah Fry

“That would be a revolution in pandemic prevention.”

Dr Javid Abdelmoneim, a co-host of the show, visited Imperial College London, to look at how the university was mitigating the possible effects of a deadly virus.

He said: “That’s the theory being tested in this unique experiment.

“Researchers at Imperial College want to know if some people are biological super-spreaders.

“Is there something about their genes that makes them highly infectious?

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“If there is a biological reason, there could be a test to identify super-spreaders before an outbreak hits and that’s the revolution in pandemic control that could be starting here today.”

Dr Abdelmoneim then revealed the experiment that took place.

He explained: “It’s about 7am and this looks like any ordinary hospital wing, but it’s a research facility.

“Technically, Joydeep Dutta isn’t a patient, he’s one of 10 healthy volunteers being quarantined in this ward about to be infected with a large dose of purified swine flu.

“Researchers are hoping they can pinpoint what makes people react differently to the same virus.”

Dr Abdelmoneim explained how the team purposely infected volunteers to study their reaction to the virus.

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He added: “To find out what might make someone particularly contagious, the team will dose Joydeep and the other volunteers with flu, then compare how they respond.

“Each of these vials is packed with five million swine flu virus particles, the same strain that caused the 2009 pandemic.

“What happens next is a battle between the five million virus particles and Joydeep’s personal biology.

“At the moment there is no way of predicting how he will react, over the following days his samples, along with those from the other volunteers, are tested to see how infected they’ve become.

“Everyone was inoculated with the same dose, which makes the difference in their results astonishing.”

Senior lecturer at the university, Dr Chris Chiu, revealed why the experiment was vital.

He said: “What you can see here is that every spot that’s green is a cell that’s infected with flu.

“Joydeep has made a lot more virus in his nose than the other people and we can zoom in on one of those areas where it’s particularly dense and here it’s swollen up and falling apart.

“It’s the ultimate hope to develop a test to predetermine the super-spreaders.”

Yesterday, the number of deaths related to COVID-19 rose from 475 to 578, health officials have confirmed, with 11,658 confirmed cases.

The latest figures came after Chancellor Rishi Sunak unveiled an aid programme to help the self-employed.

At 8pm, people across the UK took part in a national applause of thanks for NHS workers and carers helping in the fight against coronavirus.

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