The world’s first human challenge COVID-19 is about to begin.
Britain will infect 2,500 healthy volunteers with coronavirus to study the behavior of the infection in the body, specifically the amount needed before a person develops Covid-19, Sun reported.
The government has budgeted $ 45 million for the research, which is being conducted by Imperial College, the Royal National Free Health Hospital and the pharmaceutical company hVIVO, a pioneer in viral human challenge models.
Human challenge studies are not often used because of the ethical issues that arise about infecting healthy people.
The British, aged 18 to 30, will get a dose of an experimental nasal vaccine and then be infected. The project starts in January; scientists expect the first results in May.
Alastair Fraser-Urquhart, 18, of Stoke-on-Trent, raised his hand because he wants to help “get the world out of the pandemic sooner.”
“I can’t pass up this opportunity to do something, to do something really when I have such a low risk.”
Fraser-Urquhart and his fellow volunteers will receive about $ 5,300 for their three-week stay at the hospital’s disease clinic, where they will be monitored all day, Mail Online reports.
Later, researchers will use the human challenge model to find out how vaccines work to prevent coronavirus.
On Wednesday, British scientists announced that people who had mild cases of COVID developed immunity that lasted at least four months.