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The first global study into the human challenge COVID-19 is expected to start in the UK in the coming weeks after receiving ethics approval, the government said.
The study has already received a £ 33.6million investment from the UK government and will initially involve up to 90 healthy adult volunteers who will be exposed to the novel coronavirus in a safe and controlled environment.
In this first step of the study, researchers will aim to find the smallest amount of virus needed to cause COVID-19 infection in small groups of healthy young people between the ages of 18 and 30 who are at low risk of prejudice.
This step – known as the virus characterization study – will initially use the version of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that has been circulating in the UK since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.
The version of the virus used at this point in the study was produced by a team at the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust in London, in collaboration with clinical company hVIVO and with support from virologists at Imperial College of London.
Thereafter, the researchers will donate a small number of volunteer vaccine candidates – which have already been proven in clinical trials – and then expose them to COVID-19.
This will help researchers identify the most effective vaccines and speed up their development, the government said.
“We have secured 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. UK vaccine work.
“We hope that these studies will offer unique insights into how the virus works and help us understand which promising vaccines offer the best chance of preventing infection,” he added.
The COVID-19 Human Challenge Study is part of a partnership between the UK Vaccine Task Force, Imperial College London, the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust and hVIVO.
Human challenge studies have been used previously to support the development of treatments for a range of diseases, including malaria, typhoid, cholera, norovirus, and influenza.
Researchers involved in the COVID-19 human challenge study are asking people between the ages of 18 and 30, who are at low risk of developing complications from the coronavirus, to volunteer for the study.
“We are asking volunteers between the ages of 18 and 30 to join this research enterprise and help us understand how the virus infects people and how it is transmitted so successfully between us,” said Chris Chiu, chief researcher of the study.
“Our ultimate goal is to determine which vaccines and treatments work best to beat this disease, but we need volunteers to support us in this work,” he added.
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