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UK could become first country in world to deliberately infect volunteers with Covid-19 for vaccine test

The UK could host the world's first Covid-19 "human challenge trials" in which healthy volunteers are infected with coronavirus to test the effectiveness of experimental vaccines.The UK could host the world's first Covid-19 "human challenge trials" in which healthy volunteers are infected with coronavirus to test the effectiveness of experimental vaccines.

The studies are expected to begin in January at a secure quarantine facility in east London, according to a Financial Times report. Those taking part will be inoculated with a vaccine before receiving a “challenge” dose of Sars-Cov-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, under controlled conditions a month or so later.

A Government spokesperson confirmed ministers were looking into collaborating on the potential development of a vaccine through such human challenge studies. "We are working with partners to understand how we might collaborate on the potential development of a Covid-19 vaccine through human challenge studies," the spokesperson said.

"These discussions are part of our work to research ways of treating, limiting and hopefully preventing the virus so we can end the pandemic sooner." Any trial that involves exposing people to Covid-19 would need to be approved by the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), as well as an independent research ethics committee.

The MHRA said such studies can "be helpful for the development of vaccines and can provide early evidence of clinical efficacy, particularly when there are low rates of infection of the virus in the Population". Dr Hilary says 'it makes sense' to keep university students on campus over christmas“The safety of trial participants is our top priority and any proposal from a developer to include a human infection challenge as part of a clinical trial for development of a vaccine would be considered on a benefit-risk basis, with risks monitored for and minimised in the proposed trial design," it added.

Reports of the potential trials meanwhile come amid a surge of confirmed Covid-19 cases in the UK.

The number of daily coronavirus cases recorded nationwide rose on Wednesday to more than 6,000 for the first time since May, taking the overall number of cases confirmed to 409,729. On Thursday, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said nearly 10,000 people a day are contracting coronavirus in the UK as he urged people to download the newly-released NHS tracing app. 

Health Sec: Under 10,000 Per Day Getting Virus 'Still Too High'He said the 10,000 daily infections were still fewer than the “100,000 per day” estimated during the spring peak.

He told Sky News: “The massive testing capability we’ve got helps to find where the virus is so, if you think about it, yesterday we had a figure that there is over 6,000 people who have tested positive in the previous 24 hours. “And that is comparable to the highest levels in the peak in terms of the number of people who were tested positive but back then we estimate through surveys that over 100,000 people a day were catching the disease, but we only found around 6,000 of them and they tested positive.

When could a coronavirus vaccine be available to the public?“Now we estimate that it is under 10,000 people a day getting the disease – that’s too high but it is still much lower than in the peak – and through the mass testing we have and the quarter-of-a-million capacity, we found yesterday over 6,000 of them.

“That then allows us to do the contact tracing for everyone who has tested positive and find who they’ve been in contact with. “In addition, today with the app, if you download the app you will also have that added protection for you and your loved ones.”
Mr Hancock made the comments as he welcomed the launch of the NHS contract tracing app in England and Wales. The rollout follows months of delay and questions about its effectiveness in the face of mixed results from other countries which have already deployed such apps.

Reference: Evening StandardDavid Child 2 days ago: 25/09/2020