UK to deliberately infect people with COVID-19 to speed up vaccine
LONDON,United Kingdom.(News Of the South) – The United Kingdom Government confirmed today that it would be the first to deliberately infect healthy volunteers with covid-19.
By Karen Mhlanga
Volunteers between 18 and 30 years of age will be given a dose of experimental vaccine before they are infected with covid-19 with the intention of finding the ‘lowest possible safe dose’ before an infection is triggered.
The trials are to start in January and the patients will stay at a specialist diseases clinic at the Royal Free Hospital in London where they will be closely monitored.
Imperial College London’s Professor Peter Openshaw said the aim of the study is to ‘get the virus to replicate in the nose’ and not to get people sick.
Professor Openshaw said:“We think that by taking every precaution we can really limit the infection and then we should be able to do it quite safely given the vast amount of experience that we have in this field.”
The first person to try the challenge trials was a scientist called Edward Jenner.
The volunteers of the trial will continue to be monitored for a year to make sure that there are no negative effects afterwards.
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