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Extreme strategies are being used in several places to accelerate vaccine development.
Would you be interested in being locked in isolation and exposed to the coronavirus to help researchers better understand the disease and possibly speed up the development of a vaccine?
Nature and the BBC report that the British government has entered into a deal worth 33.6 million pounds (over 400 million kronor) with the Dublin-based research institute Open Orphan to launch a research project in which that is precisely the purpose.
The goal is to start as early as January and will be carried out in collaboration with the renowned Imperial College London and the Royal Free Hospital in London.
It will accelerate development
The challenge with regular studies to find out if a vaccine is effective is that so-called phase 3 studies can take a long, long time to complete.
The norm is to administer the vaccine to thousands, or tens of thousands, of people. Then you wait a few months and see to what extent the participants get infected or not in their normal life.
So-called “human challenge” studies simply take the shortcut: After receiving a vaccine, you are exposed to the virus. Therefore, you will know if a person is really in a situation of infection and you will get much better data on whether a vaccine works.
Also read: He wants extreme measures so that the corona vaccine reaches the market faster
The challenge with these types of studies is that they are ethically controversial, because healthy people must be consciously and intentionally infected with a life-threatening virus, which has also been shown to have serious long-term effects.
– Intentionally infecting volunteers with a virus is something that can never be taken lightly. But such studies are incredibly informative about a disease, says Peter Openshaw, an immunologist at Imperial College London who will lead the study.
– It is absolutely crucial that we move as quickly as possible towards an effective vaccine and treatment for COVID-19, and challenge studies have the potential to accelerate and reduce risk in drug and vaccine development, he says.
According to Nature, economists at Imperial College had previously calculated that accelerating vaccine development by one month could save 720,000 years of life and 70 million years of life in poverty.
Also read: Pharmaceutical company took off after vaccine news
It is not clear which vaccines to try
Initially, the researchers will recruit healthy people between the ages of 18 and 30, who will be used as guinea pigs to find out the smallest amount of virus participants must be exposed to in order to become infected with the disease.
The goal of the younger age is to minimize the risk involved.
Also read: Nature: – For every 1,000 people infected with corona under the age of 50, almost no one will die
It is not yet known which vaccines and drugs will ultimately be tested in hundreds of participants. According to the WHO, there are around 200 different vaccine candidates in development.
“For vaccine candidates that are still in the middle of the development process, challenge studies can be helpful in selecting those who have the greatest potential to be able to enter a larger phase 3 study,” he told the BBC. England’s health director, Jonathan Van-Tam.
– For vaccines that are in the last phase of development and that have already been shown to be safe and effective, studies can show whether a vaccine prevents the spread of infection, in addition to preventing disease, he notes.
You get paid for the risk
Participants who participate in the study will be compensated for their effort. According to Nature, Open Orphan is initially offering £ 4,000 in compensation for participating in similar studies, just under 50,000 crowns.
According to Nature, there are now several institutions around the world that are considering similar studies, including in Belgium, Italy, and Colorado State University in the US.
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