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The warning comes as the US published its new bio-defence policy in an attempt to protect against the threat of bio-chemical weapons and outbreaks of infectious disease.

In the last six months alone, Zimbabwe has been hit by a wave of cholera, the DRC has seen a fresh outbreak of Ebola, and the Black Death has returned to Madagascar.

And earlier this week the first ever Brit to be infected by monkeypox revealed her fears she may have passed on the deadly virus to her husband.

Professor Wyn Rees, a security expert at the University of Nottingham, told Daily Star Online that spreading diseases via commercial planes was the “Holy Grail” of terror.

(Image: DS)

He told us: “There are always lots of warnings with these kinds of things, be it bird flu or Ebola or monkeypox.

“Because the fear is based on the fact they can cross borders very quickly.

“I have no doubt public health officials are discussing the implications of these threats in Europe. Of course, everything will be top secret.

“It would be incredibly difficult to detect these diseases within a passenger on a plane, when they are sitting dormant.

“At present we have a huge amount of technology and infrastructure dedicated to detecting explosive material in suitcases –but there’s no obvious way of preventing the spread of disease in the same way.

“It’s important to stress that any attack of this nature would be incredibly difficult to carry out.

“But there are genuine fears and it remains a real risk.”

Daily Star Online this week reported how the world’s first ever case of a human contracting the “rat version” of the hepatitis E virus.

The disease was found in a 56-year-old man from Hong Kong who persistently produced abnormal liver function tests following a liver transplant.

There had previously been no evidence the disease could jump from rats to humans, the University of Hong Kong said on Friday.