Healthy, young volunteers who have previously had COVID-19
will be deliberately exposed to coronavirus for a second time to see how
the immune system responds, as part of a new U.K. study.
Researchers at the University of Oxford on Monday launched the “human challenge” trial
to investigate what happens when volunteers who have recovered from the
coronavirus disease are then reinfected with the virus a second time.
The study, which is funded by the Wellcome Trust, is expected
to start in the next few weeks after receiving ethics approval, and
could help accelerate the development of new treatments and vaccines
against the disease.
Human challenge studies have played a
crucial role in the development of treatments for a number of diseases,
including malaria, typhoid, cholera and flu.
Read: Only 50 people are known to have contracted COVID-19 more than once — but new strains have medical experts on high alert
“A
challenge study allows us to make these measurements very precisely
because we know exactly when someone is infected,” said Helen McShane,
professor of vaccinology at the department of pediatrics at
the University of Oxford and chief investigator on the study.
“The information from this work 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 likely to provide immunity for at least 5 months, but people may still transmit virus, study finds
The
first stage of the trial will involve up to 64 volunteers aged 18-30
who have previously been naturally infected with COVID-19. It will look
to establish the lowest dose of virus that can take hold and start
replicating in about 50% of participants, while producing few to no
symptoms.
Volunteers will be monitored in a safe, controlled
environment while quarantined in a specially designed hospital suite for
a minimum of 17 days. Anyone who develops coronavirus symptoms will be
given Regeneron
REGN,
-0.28%
monoclonal antibody treatment.
Once
the standard dose is established, it will be used to infect different
volunteers in the second stage of the trial, which is due to start in
the summer. The full length of the study will be 12 months, including a
minimum of eight follow-up appointments after volunteers have been
discharged.
Read: Young, healthy adults will be paid £4,500 to be deliberately infected with COVID-19 in new trial
The
new study is different to a parallel one led by Imperial College
London, which was announced in February, and will expose up to 90
carefully selected healthy adult volunteers to coronavirus to help
researchers understand how the virus infects people and how it is
transmitted.
It comes as almost 10 million people in the U.K. have now received their second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to the latest government figures.
Three vaccines are currently in use in the U.K.: the one jointly developed by German biotech BioNTech
BNTX,
-1.58%
and U.S. drug company Pfizer
PFE,
0.66%
; the one produced by drug company AstraZeneca with the University of Oxford; and the shot from biotech Moderna
MRNA,
-5.61%.
Last week, Moderna said it would deliver fewer than expected COVID-19 vaccines to the U.K., Canada and other countries, following a shortfall in production in its European supply chain.
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