Wiltshire base on front line of war on terror

Experts from a biological warfare laboratory in Wiltshire are on the front line of the UK's defence against terrorist threats.

Porton Down, near Salisbury, is playing a key role in Government strategy to prepare the country's response to terrorist attacks.

The base's participation in combating the threat of terrorism emerged at a meeting of the Commons defence committee, which is investigating the UK's level of readiness for emergencies.

But Brigadier Chip Chapman, the Government's head of counter-terrorism, told MPs he could not go into details for national security reasons.

He said immediate response teams from the Porton Down–based Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) had been deployed several times over the past year.

"The number of occasions they have been used and the circumstances I can not go into in this forum," he said.

Defence scientists based at Porton Down's laboratories mainly specialise in nuclear and biological warfare, and the DSTL is the UK's leading biological and chemical defence research centre.

The base also develops other technologies for military and civilian use, including X-ray scanning equipment and armour.

Security Minister Lord West told the same meeting Government agencies were better informed about the counter-terrorism forces and scientific capabilities available to them than they have ever been, and that a compendium had been made available to officials.

But he confessed he did not know how many hospital beds could be made available if there was ever an emergency that killed more than 10,000 people.

He said the Department of Health would know the figures and plans would be coordinated by the Government's emergency planning committee, Cobra.

Experts from another Government security agency based at Porton Down have been called in after a man contracted a rare form of the potentially deadly disease anthrax.

Fernando Gomez, a musician and instrument-maker from Argentina in his 30s, is fighting for his life in hospital in London.

The disease was diagnosed last weekend and samples were sent to the Government's Health Protection Agency lab at Porton Down.

Experts from the lab are due to carry out tests in protective clothing at the workshop where Mr Gomez makes drums and other percussive instruments from imported animal skins.

The team will assess whether the workshop needs to be decontaminated.

Scientists at the Health Protection Agency's Porton complex deal with some of the most highly toxic agents that humans can be infected with such as anthrax, haemorrhagic fever, pox viruses, TB and Q fever.

The Wiltshire base, founded to combat German use of chemical weapons in World War I, is occupied by three bodies – HPA, the DSTL and the Porton Bioscience and Technology Centre (PBTC).