LONDON (Reuters) – Britain became the first country in the world on Wednesday to give the green light to human challenge studies in which volunteers are deliberately exposed to COVID-19 to advance research into the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
The trial, which will start in a month, will see up to 90 healthy volunteers between the ages of 18 and 30 exposed to the smallest amount of the virus needed to cause infection, scientists behind the plans told reporters during a newsletter.
Volunteers will be screened for potential health risks before participating, and quarantined for at least 14 days for close monitoring by medical personnel in a specialized unit at the Royal Free Hospital in London.
“The absolute priority, of course, is the safety of volunteers,” said Peter Openshaw, professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College London, who is leading the project with the UK government’s vaccines task force and clinical company hVIVO. “None of us want to do this when there is significant risk.”
Scientists have been using human challenge trials for decades to learn more about diseases such as malaria, flu, typhoid and cholera, and to develop treatments and vaccines against these diseases.
Study participants may go home after the first 14 days only if “extensive testing” shows they are not contagious, said Chris Chiu of Imperial, the trial’s lead investigator.
The goal of this first work was “to understand how the virus infects humans and how it passes between us so successfully,” Chiu said. Further studies using the challenge models could then be conducted in the coming months and years to determine which vaccines and treatments work best, he said.
Volunteers will receive a fee of approximately £ 88 ($ 122) per day for the duration of the study, which will also require follow-up monitoring for a year, Chiu’s team said, and the studies will be conducted in a safe and controlled environment and minimizes any risk.
To make the trial as safe as possible, the version of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that has been circulating in England since March 2020 will be used instead of one of the new variants, they said.