AS HASLEMERE prepares to become the guinea pig for one of the biggest research programmes ever launched in the town, in discovering how a flu pandemic might affect the UK within a close-knit small town, researchers will be on hand at this Sunday’s farmers market to start the ball rolling.

The BBC Pandemic project was launched on Wednesday on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, with people invited to download the Pandemic app on their smartphones.

Through the app, BBC Pandemic is conducting two experiments – the National Outbreak, which is open to anyone in the UK, and the Haslemere Outbreak, a closed local study that is only open to people in the Surrey town, which runs for 72 hours starting on Thursday, October 19.

The app can be used by anybody who lives, works or shops in the town. The study’s organisers stress it will not provide any personal information or data, and will only track and store location movements during the 72-hour period through GPS and wifi and other technology.

The project, undertaken by scientists from Cambridge University and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, could save lives in the event of a deadly pandemic outbreak. The three-day study and its results will be featured in a BBC documentary early next year.

• Haslemere farmers’ market takes place in the High Street on Sunday, October 1, between 10am and 1.30pm.