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French Media AgencyOctober 21, 2020 09:20:27 am
British researchers said Tuesday they hope to expose healthy volunteers to the virus that causes Covid-19 in a pioneering study to discover the amount needed for people to become infected.
The Human Challenge Program, an association that includes Imperial College London, hopes that the work will ultimately help “reduce the spread of the coronavirus, mitigate its impact and reduce deaths.”
In what the researchers called a world first, the initial stage of the project will examine the possibility of exposing healthy volunteers to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Their goal is to recruit volunteers between the ages of 18 and 30 with no underlying health problems like heart disease, diabetes, or obesity.
“In this initial phase, the goal will be to discover the least amount of virus necessary to cause a person to develop Covid-19,” Imperial College said in a statement.
The volunteer would become infected through the nose, Peter Openshaw, professor of experimental medicine at Imperial, told BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday.
“The great advantage of these volunteer studies is that we can observe each volunteer very carefully not only during infection but also before infection, and we can find out exactly what is happening at each stage,” he added.
The researchers would use the results to study how vaccines might work and explore potential treatments.
Since the study deliberately infects volunteers, “it should be possible for scientists to begin to establish efficacy very quickly, testing whether those who have received a vaccine are less likely to become infected with the virus,” the researchers explained.
“Our number one priority is the safety of the volunteers,” said Chris Chiu of Imperial’s infectious diseases department.
“No study is completely risk-free, but the Human Challenge Program partners will work hard to ensure the risks are as low as possible.”
“The UK’s experience and expertise in human challenge trials, as well as the broader science of COVID-19, will help us tackle the pandemic, benefiting people in the UK and around the world,” he added .
But Jonathan Ball, professor of molecular virology at the University of Nottingham, warned that safety concerns may limit what researchers can learn from the study.
“Any study involving the new coronavirus will focus on those most likely to experience a mild infection – young, healthy volunteers,” he said in a Science Media Center news release.
“However, the people we need to protect against serious diseases are the most vulnerable older people, so what we learn from challenge studies may be of broader and more limited relevance.”
The study is expected to begin early next year, said the association’s research team, which also includes the government, a clinical company and a hospital.
Also read: Could human challenge trials speed up the process?
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