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 it takes for a person to develop Covid-19, the Sun reported.
The government has committed $ 45 million to the study, which is being conducted by Imperial College, the National Health Service’s Royal Free Hospital, and the pharmaceutical company hVIVO, a pioneer in viral human challenge models.
Human challenge research is not often used because of the ethical questions that have been raised about infecting healthy people.
Britons aged 18 to 30 are given a dose of an experimental nasal vaccine and are then infected. The project will start in January; scientists expect the first results in May.
Alastair Fraser-Urquhart, 18, of Stoke-on-Trent, raised his hand as he wants to help “get the world out of the pandemic earlier …
“I can’t pass up this opportunity to do something, to really do something, 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 specialist illness clinic, where they are monitored around the clock, the Mail Online reported.
Later, 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 developed immunity that lasts for at least four months.