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 trial on Wednesday.
Funded by the British government, the $ 47 million study will play a crucial role in the further development of coronavirus vaccines and treatments, officials said.
The first such challenge study is due to begin next month, involving up to 90 carefully selected healthy volunteers aged 18-30. They will be compensated for their time.
During the trial, volunteers will be exposed to the least amount of the virus needed to cause the infection, in a “safe and controlled environment”, 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 new variants.
Officials noted that doctors and scientists will closely monitor participants 24 hours a day, and emphasized that the March 2020 strain “has been shown to be of low risk in healthy young adults”.
They hope to identify the least amount of virus needed to cause the infection. The test will also help doctors and scientists to understand how the immune system reacts to the virus and to identify factors that affect the way it is transmitted.
“Although there has been very positive progress in vaccine development, we want to find the best and most effective vaccines for long-term use,” said Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng in a statement. “These human challenge studies will be conducted here in the UK and will help to speed up scientists’ understanding of how the coronavirus affects people and can eventually promote the rapid development of vaccines.”
The controversial study is different from the typical vaccine trials, in which participants receive a vaccine or a placebo and are then instructed to do their daily lives. In this case, the researchers hope that some volunteers will end up being exposed to the virus naturally.
Challenge tests, however, guarantee exposure in the hope of accelerating results. They have been used in the past to study diseases such as malaria, typhoid, cholera, norovirus and the flu.
After the first trial, a small number of volunteers can receive vaccine candidates who have passed clinical tests to identify which are most effective. This week, the UK has reached its goal of vaccinating 15 million people with its first dose.
“We ensure a range of safe and effective vaccines for the UK, but it is essential that we continue to develop new vaccines and treatments for COVID-19,” Clive Dix, acting president of the Vaccine Task Force, told BBC News. “We hope that these studies will offer a unique insight into how the virus works and help us understand which promising vaccines offer the best chance of preventing infection.”