Oxford University said on Monday it had launched a process in which people who already had COVID-19 were deliberately re-infected.
The carefully controlled study will analyze the type of immune response assembled by volunteers.
Scientists will know “exactly when the second infection occurs and exactly how much they received the virus,” Helen McShane, a professor of vaccinology, said in a statement.
She said the process “can help us design tests that can accurately predict whether people are protected” after a previous infection.
Anyone suffering from symptoms will receive Regeneron antibody treatment used to treat patients with COVID-19.
Oxford University’s “first-of-its-kind” tests are funded by the Wellcome Trust.
At the beginning of the process, up to 64 healthy and healthy volunteers between the ages of 18 and 30 will be deliberately reinfected with the original Wuhan strain.
They will be quarantined for at least 17 days in a special hospital suite, with lung and heart scans. They will then have subsequent meetings and will be monitored for one year.
“This study has the potential to transform our understanding by providing high-quality data,” said Shobana Balasingam, senior vaccine research advisor at Wellcome.
The initial phase of the study will look at the minimum dose that allows the virus to start replicating asymptomatically in about 50% of volunteers.
Then, in the second phase, another group of volunteers will all receive this set minimum dose.
The trial takes place as a London hospital isolated a group of healthy volunteers while exposing them to the virus in a world premiere.
It started in March and takes place in collaboration between Imperial College London and the hVIVO company at the Royal London Hospital.
Those who have been infected in a controlled way are monitored to see how their disease is progressing and how medicines and vaccines could work against it.
© Agence France-Presse