British scientists on Monday launched a trial that will deliberately expose participants who already had COVID-19 to the coronavirus again to examine immune responses and see if people become infected.
In February, the UK became the first country in the world to launch so-called “challenge studies” in humans, in which volunteers are deliberately exposed to COVID-19 to advance research into coronavirus disease. Read more
The study launched on Monday differs from the one announced in February, as it seeks to reinfect people who previously had COVID-19 in an effort to deepen understanding of immunity, rather than infecting people for the first time.
“The information in this paper will allow us to design better vaccines and treatments and also to understand whether people are protected after having COVID and for how long,” said Helen McShane, vaccinologist and chief researcher at Oxford University. .
She added that the paper will help understand what immune responses protect against reinfection.
Scientists have used provocative human tests for decades to learn more about diseases such as malaria, the flu, typhoid and cholera and to develop treatments and vaccines against them.
The first stage of the study will seek to determine the lowest dose of coronavirus needed for it to begin to replicate in approximately 50% of participants, while producing few or no symptoms. A second phase, which begins in the summer, will infect different volunteers with that standard dose.
In the first phase, up to 64 healthy participants, aged between 18 and 30 years, who were infected with coronavirus at least three months ago, will be reinfected with the original strain of SARS-CoV-2.
They will then be quarantined for at least 17 days and monitored, and anyone who develops symptoms will be given a Regeneron monoclonal antibody treatment.
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