The aim of the study is to deepen the understanding of immunity and help design better treatments and vaccines.
British scientists have launched a trial that will deliberately expose participants who have already had COVID-19 to the coronavirus to examine immune responses and see if people are re-infected.
In February, Britain became the first country in the world to approve so-called “challenge trials” in humans, in which volunteers are deliberately exposed to COVID-19 to advance research into coronavirus disease. .
The study launched on Monday differs from the one announced in February, as it seeks to reinfect people who have previously had COVID-19 in an attempt to deepen their understanding of immunity, rather than infecting people for the first time. .
“The information in this work will allow us to design better vaccines and treatments and also understand if people are protected after having COVID and for how long,” said Helen McShane, a vaccinologist at Oxford University and chief researcher of the study.
He added that the work would help to understand which immune responses protect against reinfection.
Scientists have used human challenge trials for decades to learn more about diseases such as malaria, the flu, typhus and cholera and to develop treatments and vaccines against them.
The first phase of the trial will attempt to establish the lowest dose of coronavirus needed to begin replication in approximately 50% of participants, producing few or no symptoms. A second phase, starting in the summer, will infect different volunteers with this standard dose.
In the first phase, up to 64 healthy participants, aged 18 to 30, 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 receive treatment with Regeneron monoclonal antibodies.