The UK is set to launch the world’s first trial of healthy volunteers with intentional coronavirus infection after the study received ethical approval.
The so-called study for human challenges will begin within a month, the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said in a statement on Wednesday with up to 90 people exposed to a very small amount of coronavirus in a safe and controlled environment. These types of trials are controversial because they expose healthy volunteers to deadly diseases.
The next phase of the study, which has not yet been approved, involves giving a coronavirus vaccine to different volunteers and then exposing them to coronavirus. Only vaccines that have “proven safe in clinical trials” will be used. However, according to Terence Stephenson, chair of the Health Research Authority, researchers have come a long way from this stage of the study.
Proponents believe that these studies are the fastest way to evaluate new vaccines, especially if the world is emerging from an active pandemic, said Robert Read, head of clinical and experimental science medicine at the University of Southampton, who belongs to and shares this camp. is from the team involved in the study.
This initial part of the study will help doctors understand how the immune system responds to the virus and identify what affects the transmission. The drug Remdesivir will be used as soon as volunteers begin to develop symptoms.
The volunteers, who are encouraged to come forward for the study, will be between 18 and 30 and will be exposed to the variant that has been spreading in the UK since March 2020.
This article is part of POLITICOpremium policy service: Pro Health Care. Our specialized journalists keep you up to date on topics affecting healthcare policies, from prices for medicines, EMAs, vaccines, pharmaceuticals and more. Email [email protected] for a complimentary trial run.