UK To Deliberately Infect Volunteers With Coronavirus To Test Effectiveness Of Experimental Covid-19 Vaccines: Report

In a bid to assess the effectiveness of experimental Coronavirus vaccines, the United Kingdom is set to host the world's first Covid-19 human challenge trials where the volunteers will be deliberately infected with coronavirus.

The UK government funded project is likely to begin in January at a secure quarantine facility in east London, reported Financial Times citing several people involved with the project.

The FT report said that the volunteers for the project, which will be announce next week, will be first inoculated with a vaccine and later receive a challenge dose of the Covid-19 causing SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, under controlled conditions.

However, the report did not mention the name of the vaccine that would be tested in the human challenge trial.

According to the report, the challenge trials have been instrumental in developing vaccines and treatments for typhoid, cholera and malaria and in understanding how the immune system responds to flu.

The project’s academic leader is Imperial College London, and it will be run by hVivo, a spinout from Queen Mary University of London that was bought earlier this year by Open Orphan, a Dublin-based pharmaceutical research organisation, the report said.