The world’s first COVID-19 human challenge is about to begin.
Britain will infect 2,500 healthy volunteers with coronavirus to study how the infection behaves in the body – specifically the amount needed before a person develops Covid-19, Sun reported.
The government has budgeted $ 45 million for the research, which is being conducted by Imperial College, the Royal Free Hospital of the National Health Service and the pharmaceutical company hVIVO, a pioneer in human viral challenge models.
Human challenge studies are not used often due to ethical questions raised about how to infect healthy people.
The British, aged 18 to 30, will receive a dose of an experimental nasal vaccine and will be infected. The project starts in January; scientists expect the first results in May.
Alastair Fraser-Urquhart, 18, of Stoke-on-Trent, raised his hand because he wants to help “get the world out of the pandemic sooner.
“I can’t let this opportunity to do something, to really do something, pass me by when I’m at such a low risk.”
Fraser-Urquhart and his fellow volunteers will receive about $ 5,300 for their three-week stay at the hospital’s disease clinic, where they will be monitored 24 hours a day, Mail Online reported.
Later, the researchers will use the human challenge model to find out how vaccines work to prevent coronavirus.
On Wednesday, British scientists announced that people with mild cases of COVID have developed an immunity that lasts at least four months.