Healthy young volunteers who previously had COVID-19 will be deliberately exposed to the coronavirus for the second time to see how the immune system reacts, as part of a new study in the UK.
Researchers at Oxford University on Monday launched a “human challenge” test to investigate what happens when volunteers who have recovered from coronavirus disease are then re-infected with the virus a second time.
The study, which is funded by the Wellcome Trust, is expected to begin in the next few weeks after receiving ethical approval and could help accelerate the development of new treatments and vaccines against the disease.
Studies of the human challenge have played a crucial role in the development of treatments for a number of diseases, including malaria, typhoid, cholera and influenza.
Read: It is known that only 50 people contracted COVID-19 several times – but the new strains have medical experts on high alert
“A challenging study allows us to make these measurements very accurately because we know exactly when someone is infected,” said Helen McShane, a professor of vaccinology in the pediatric department at Oxford University and chief investigator of the study.
“The information in this paper will allow us to design better vaccines and treatments and also to understand if people are protected after having COVID and for how long,” McShane said.
Read: COVID-19 infection is likely to provide immunity for at least 5 months, but humans can still transmit the virus, the study found.
The first stage of the study will involve up to 64 volunteers aged between 18 and 30 who were previously naturally infected with COVID-19. It will seek to determine the lowest dose of virus that can be implemented and begin to replicate in approximately 50% of participants, while producing few or no symptoms.
Volunteers will be monitored in a safe and controlled environment, while they are quarantined in a specially designed hospital suite for at least 17 days. Anyone who develops coronavirus symptoms will receive Regeneron REGN,
treatment with monoclonal antibodies.
Once the standard dose is set, it will be used to infect different volunteers in the second stage of the study, which will start in the summer. The full duration of the study will be 12 months, including a minimum of eight follow-up meetings after the volunteers have been released.
Read: Young, healthy adults will be paid £ 4,500 to be deliberately infected with COVID-19 in a new trial
The new study is different from a parallel one led by Imperial College London, which was announced in February and will expose up to 90 healthy adult volunteers carefully selected for coronavirus to help researchers understand how the virus infects people and how is transmitted.
It is happening because almost 10 million people in the UK have now received the second dose of COVID-19 vaccine, according to the latest government figures.
Three vaccines are currently used in the UK: the one jointly developed by German biotechnology BioNTech BNTX,
and the American drug company Pfizer PFE,
; the one produced by the drug company AstraZeneca with the University of Oxford; and photography from Modern biotechnology MRNA,
Last week, Moderna said it would deliver fewer COVID-19 vaccines than expected in the UK, Canada and other countries, following a production shortfall in its European supply chain.