AS the Salisbury ‘Spygate Saga’ continues to dominate world headlines, I was reminded of another episode which took the country by storm back in November 1976.

Geoffrey Platt, a senior scientific officer at Porton’s Microbiological Research Establishment was working with a Marburg type virus when a syringe accidentally pierced his protective glove.

He tore off his glove but could see no sign of any injury to the skin – but he quickly disinfected himself as a natural precaution.

Later, Mr Platt began to develop feverish symptoms and it was decided to send him to Coppetts Wood Hospital in North London for quarantined observation.

Within hours of Mr Platt’s admission to hospital, Mr Michael Hamilton, MP for Salisbury, asked the secretary of State for Defence for a full statement.

“Although the most careful precautions are taken,” Mr Hamilton commented, “it is well that we, the general public, should remember that the work of the scientists at Porton in the interest of the community can never be entirely free of risk.”

Dr Israel Vlotnik, who had been a former head of Experimental Pathology at Porton, gave a statement to the local press. “It is one of the most highly infectious diseases but I don’t think there is any danger of people in the street getting it. You have to be in very close contact with the suspect. The disease is named after the Vervet or green monkey which has carried it.”

However, Mr Platt’s wife Eileen and their two children plus 44 other local ‘suspects’ went into voluntary isolation for three weeks just to be on the safe side!

Mr Platt eventually recovered due to the immune serum he received, taken from African patients who had recovered from the disease. It was flown to England from Zaire.

Let us hope that the fate of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia also has a happy ending.

n Editor’s note: The picture of a scientist at Porton Down used by the Journal on the breaking story on November 18, 1976 was a stock picture taken at an open day the previous year. It then emerged that the man in the picture happened to be Mr Platt.