UK to infect dozens of healthy volunteers in world’s first COVID-19 ‘provocation test’

England is set to become the first country in the world to intentionally infect healthy volunteers with COVID-19 in what is known as a ‘human challenge study’. The country’s medical ethics body approved the lawsuit on Wednesday.

Funded by the UK government, the $ 47 million study will play a crucial role in the further development of coronavirus vaccines and treatments, officials said.

The challenge study, the first of its kind, is expected to begin within the next month, involving up to 90 carefully screened healthy volunteers, ages 18 to 30. They will be paid for their time.

During the trial, volunteers will be exposed to the smallest amount of virus necessary to cause infection, in a “safe and controlled environment”, in order to better understand its effects. The study will use the version of the virus that has been circulating in the UK since March 2020, not the version new variants.

Officials noted that doctors and scientists would closely monitor participants around the clock, and noted that the March 2020 strain “has been shown to be low risk in healthy young adults.”

They hope to identify the smallest amount of virus needed to cause infection. The trial will also help doctors and scientists understand how the immune system responds to the virus and identify factors that affect how it is transmitted.

“While there has been very positive progress in vaccine development, we want to find the best and most effective vaccines for longer term use,” Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said in a statement. “These studies on human challenges will take place here in the UK and will help accelerate scientists’ knowledge of how the coronavirus affects people and could potentially support the rapid development of vaccines.”

The controversial study is different from the vaccine trials, in which participants are given a vaccine or a placebo and then told to go about their daily lives. In this case, the researchers expect that some volunteers will end up being naturally exposed to the virus.

Challenge trials, however, guarantee exposure in hopes of speeding up results. They have been used in the past to study diseases like malaria, typhoid, cholera, norovirus and influenza.

After the first trial, a small number of volunteers could be administered vaccine candidates who have passed clinical trials, to identify which are the most effective. This week, the UK hit its goal of vaccinating 15 million people with their first dose.

“We have obtained a number of safe and effective vaccines for the UK, but it is essential that we continue to develop new vaccines and treatments for COVID-19,” said Clive Dix, acting chairman of the group. work on vaccines, to BBC News. “We expect these studies to provide unique insight into how the virus works and help us understand which promising vaccines offer the best chance of preventing infection.”