UK cleared infection of healthy people with coronavirus to test the effectiveness of drugs and vaccines

The UK will begin clinical trials in the coming weeks to verify the effectiveness of drugs and vaccines against COVID-19 in which healthy people will be infected, the Department for Energy and Business reported on Wednesday. and the Industrial Strategy.

In a statement, the ministry says that the United Kingdom will be the first country in the world to carry out this type of study in this pandemic, after having been approved by an ethics committee.

In March, approximately 90 volunteers aged 18 to 30, who will be paid for their participation, will be inoculated in a safe and controlled manner to determine, in a first phase, the minimum amount of virus necessary for the generation of the infection, which will later facilitate testing vaccines and drugs.

When these data have been determined, the intention is to administer vaccines deemed safe to a small group of volunteers who will be infected with the virus, in order to verify the immune response and this serves to refine and speed up testing of the preparations for on a larger scale.

The variant of the virus with which volunteers, currently being recruited, will initially be infected will be the one circulating in the UK since March 2020 and has been shown to pose a low risk to healthy young adults, the note notes.

The test has a government investment of $ 45 million. The researchers are also working closely with health authorities to ensure that the study does not affect the ability of the hospital system to care for patients during the pandemic.

“Although vaccine development has progressed very positively, we want to find the best and most effective vaccines for long term use. These studies on human challenges will be conducted here in the UK and will help accelerate scientists’ understanding of how the coronavirus affects people and could ultimately support rapid vaccine development, ”said Kwasi Kwarteng, secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

Studies where healthy people are infected – instead of waiting for them to be infected naturally, as has been done so far in the development of anti-ovid vaccines – are already being used for the generation of vaccines and treatments. against diseases such as malaria, typhoid fever, common cold, flu or norovirus.

(With information from EFE)

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