Oxford University said on Monday it had launched a trial in which people who already had COVID-19 were deliberately re-infected.
The closely monitored study will look at the type of immune response elicited by volunteers.
The scientists will know “exactly when the second infection occurs, and exactly how much virus they got,” Helen McShane, a professor of vaccination, said in a statement.
She said the trial could help us design tests that can accurately predict whether people will be protected after a previous infection.
Anyone suffering from symptoms will receive the Regeneron antibody treatment used to treat COVID-19 patients.
The University of Oxford’s ‘first tests’ are funded by the Wellcome Trust.
At the beginning of the trial, up to 64 suitable and healthy volunteers from 18 to 30 will be re-infected with the original Wuhan tribe annually.
They will be quarantined for at least 17 days in a special hospital suit, with lung and heart scans. They will then have follow-up appointments and be monitored for a year.
“This study has the potential to transform our understanding by providing high quality data,” said Shobana Balasingam, senior research consultant at Wellcome.
In the first phase of the trial, the minimum dose that the virus can repeat in about 50 percent of the volunteers without symptoms is looked at.
In the second phase, another group of volunteers will all receive this set minimum dose.
The trial comes because a London hospital isolated a group of healthy volunteers while they were exposed to the virus, in a first world.
It started in March and is being done in collaboration between Imperial College London and the company hVIVO at the Royal London Hospital.
Those infected in a controlled manner are watched to see how their disease progresses and how drugs and vaccines can work against it.
© Agence France-Press