Would You Sign Up For a COVID-19 Human Challenge Trial?

Researchers are deliberately infecting healthy human volunteers with the virus that causes COVID-19. But why... and what is their justification?
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Human challenge trials are nothing new—researchers have been conducting them to help us understand diseases like malaria and influenza for decades. And although trials like this can be done safely, they’ve also been used unethically and controversially in the past. This human challenge trial for COVID-19 will be run by a number of clinical research organizations in the UK. It’ll be led by research scientists at Imperial College London and will take place in a high-level isolation unit at a London hospital.

Participants will be exposed to the virus by having it literally dripped into their noses. They’ll be closely monitored, with blood samples and nose swabs taken every day, and participants undergoing a battery of tests on everything from their sense of smell to their cognitive abilities throughout the trial. The first phase of the study will aim to determine infectious dose: how much virus does someone have to be exposed to… to actually get sick?

Then, after a participant has the disease, the researchers can measure their immune response to the virus and test potential treatments. This study could help us better understand questions we really need answers to: how is the virus shed by those who have it? What is the possibility and mechanism of reinfection? Can we find clues that’ll tell us which people are more likely to develop symptoms, and if so, why? Another potential benefit of a human challenge trial is that it could be expanded to compare the efficacy and safety of different vaccine formulations.

#covid #covid19 #coronavirus #pandemic #health #seeker #science #elements

Read More:

Dozens to be deliberately infected with coronavirus in UK ‘human challenge’ trials
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02821-4
"Young, healthy people will be intentionally exposed to the virus responsible for COVID-19 in a first-of-its kind ‘human challenge trial’, the UK government and a company that runs such studies announced on 20 October."

Key criteria for the ethical acceptability of COVID-19 human challenge studies
https://www.who.int/ethics/publications/key-criteria-ethical-acceptability-of-covid-19-human-challenge/en/
"Well designed challenge studies might thus not only accelerate COVID-19 vaccine development, but also make it more likely that the vaccines ultimately deployed are more effective"

Opinion: For now, it’s unethical to use human challenge studies for SARS-CoV-2 vaccine development
https://www.pnas.org/content/117/46/28538
"We believe it is unethical to move forward with such trials at the current time. Whereas proponents of these studies suggest that such studies will accelerate the time to approved vaccines, the facts fail to support these claims."
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