UK to run COVID-19 human challenge study on volunteers

Up to 90 healthy young adults will be exposed to virus in controlled environment to better understand virus' effects

LONDON (AA) – A study which will see 90 healthy young people exposed to the deadly COVID-19 virus in a controlled environment for clinical trials got the green light in Britain on Wednesday.

“The UK will be the first country in the world to run a Covid-19 human challenge study, following approval from the UK’s clinical trials ethics body,” a government statement said.

The first coronavirus human challenge will begin within a month and researchers are calling on healthy young people to volunteer for the study, “which will play a key role in developing effective Covid-19 vaccines and treatments.”

In the study, up to 90 volunteers age 18-30 will be exposed to Covid-19 in a “safe and controlled environment to increase understanding of how the virus affects people.”

“The safety of volunteers is paramount, which means this virus characterisation study will initially use the version of the virus that has been circulating in the UK since March 2020 and has been shown to be of low risk in young healthy adults,” the statement added.

“Medics and scientists will closely monitor the effect of the virus on volunteers and will be on hand to look after them 24 hours a day.”

The study will help doctors understand how the immune system reacts to coronavirus and identify factors that influence how the virus is transmitted, including how a person who is infected transmits infectious virus particles into the environment, according to the statement.

Clive Dix, interim chair of the Vaccines Taskforce, said: “We have secured a number of safe and effective vaccines for the UK, but it is essential that we continue to develop new vaccines and treatments for Covid-19. We expect these studies to offer unique insights into how the virus works and help us understand which promising vaccines offer the best chance of preventing the infection.”

The UK has so far given first doses of COVID-19 vaccines to nearly 16 million people and is seeking to bring this number up to 32 million by May.

The UK’s COVID-19 death toll, which is the worst in Europe, currently stands at 118,195.

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