The research aims to deepen understanding about immunity and help design better treatments and vaccines.
British scientists have started a trial that will deliberately re-expose participants who have already had COVID-19 to the coronavirus to investigate immune responses and see if people become infected again.
In February, Britain became the first country in the world to give the green light to so-called human challenge trials, in which volunteers are deliberately exposed to COVID-19 to advance research into the disease caused by the coronavirus.
The study launched Monday differs from the one announced in February in that it seeks to re-infect people who have previously had COVID-19 in an effort to deepen understanding about immunity, rather than trying people for the first time. infect.
“The information from this work will allow us to design better vaccines and treatments, and also to understand whether people are protected after COVID and for how long,” said Helen McShane, a University of Oxford vaccineologist and lead investigator of the University of Oxford. research.
She added that the work would help understand which immune responses protect against reinfection.
Scientists have been using trials for decades challenging people to learn more about diseases such as malaria, flu, typhoid and cholera, and to develop treatments and vaccines against these diseases.
The first phase of the trial aims to determine the lowest dose of the coronavirus needed for it to multiply in about 50 percent of the participants, while showing little to no symptoms. A second phase, starting in the summer, will infect several volunteers with that standard dose.
In phase one, up to 64 healthy participants aged 18-30 who were infected with the coronavirus at least three months ago will be reinfected with the original strain of SARS-CoV-2.
They will then be quarantined and monitored for at least 17 days, and anyone who develops symptoms will receive Regeneron treatment with monoclonal antibodies.