The government of the United Kingdom will be conducting a COVID-19 human challenge study, the first of its kind in the world.
The study involves exposing 90 healthy adults aged 18-30 to the coronavirus in order to establish the smallest amount of the virus needed to cause infection. All of the participants will be volunteers.
The U.K. government will be investing £33.6 million ($46.5 million) in the study. It will begin in a month, pending the approval of the U.K.’s clinical trials ethics body. It will be used to help develop more effective vaccines and to better understand how the immune system reacts to the virus.
“While there has been very positive progress in vaccine development, we want to find the best and most effective vaccines for use over the longer term,” said Kwasi Kwarteng, the secretary of state for business, energy, and industrial strategy. “These human challenge studies will take place here in the U.K. and will help accelerate scientists’ knowledge of how coronavirus affects people and could eventually further the rapid development of vaccines.”
Human challenge studies have been used to help develop treatments for malaria, typhoid, the norovirus, and the flu.
