The plans, which include emergency legislation and the use of police to detain people with infectious illnesses, have been drawn up by a regulator appointed by government to oversee any animal to human transplants. Last week a biotech company made a formal application to government to conduct the first full clinical trials on British patients.
The race to be the first to develop the technology to transplant hearts, kidneys and livers from pigs to humans has advanced rapidly in the past few months, and is putting pressure on the Government to allow trials, which are going ahead in the US. The Department of Health refused to reveal the name of the company that has applied to conduct the trials, or the nature of the transplants.
The only previous application to do such trials, from the US company Genzyme, has lapsed because there were no official guidelines in place at the time.
However the official regulator has now drawn up proposals - to be confirmed in December - in case the experiments lead to an outbreak of infectious disease that threatens large swaths of the population. Concern is high as both Aids and CJD are thought to have transferred to humans from animals. A French virologist, Claude Chastel, has said it could lead to 'a new infectious Chernobyl'.
The report, by the UK Xenotransplantation Interim Regulatory Authority, which is made up of a panel of experts, raises the prospect of the dramatic events depicted in the Hollywood film Outbreak happening in Britain.
It says: 'Local, regional and national incident/outbreak plans should outline the key steps in an incident response, the key participants and their roles and responsibilities.' It adds: 'If xenotransplantation gave rise to a demonstrable emergency, such as the emergence of a highly infectious disease, then it would be feasible to introduce rapid emergency legislation (including detention for testing).'
One of the authors, Dr David Cook, from Green College, Oxford, told The Observer the regulatory authority would not authorise transplants from animals to humans until it was as sure as it could be that there would be no infectious outbreak, but 'you can never produce a 100 per cent guarantee'.
Dan Lyons, founder of the pressure group Uncaged, which campaigns against animal to human transplants, said: 'It demonstrates the dangers we are dealing with and raises all sorts of questions about civil liberties.'
Clinical trials in the United States and Sweden have suggested that animal transplants can help to combat diseases. Transplanting brain cells from pig foetuses has held out hope for Parkinson's disease and stroke victims, while transplanting parts of a pig's pancreas might help diabetics. Animal transplants could also help to overcome the acute shortage of donor organs.
