With the global roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines underway,
it may feel like the end of the fight is on the horizon.
But there are still so many unanswered questions.
One groundbreaking study wants to find the answers by deliberately infecting healthy human volunteers
with the virus that we’ve all been avoiding.
So understandably, there’s a pretty big debate about if a study like this is worth the risk.
Purposefully infecting human volunteers with a pathogen to gain more insight into how that pathogen works
is called a ‘human challenge trial’—
the human body is being ‘challenged’ by the infectious thing.
Human challenge trials are nothing new—researchers have been conducting them to help us understand
diseases like malaria and influenza for decades, and they've given us some really important information.
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 in 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 something really important: infectious dose,
or 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, like:
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?
Another potential benefit of a human challenge trial is that it could be expanded to compare the efficacy and safety
of different vaccine formulations.
See, in a typical vaccine trial, people who receive the vaccine go out into the world, living their daily lives.
This allows trial researchers to gather data about how well that vaccine protects that person as they encounter disease ‘in the wild’.
But as more of the general population becomes vaccinated, it’ll actually be harder to test how well new vaccines work.
It brings up questions like:
Is a person in a vaccine trial protected because of the new vaccine they received?
Or are they protected by others around them who have been vaccinated with a different kind?
So, a human challenge trial may help us fill in the gaps about the effectiveness of new vaccine candidates,
especially as new variants of the virus emerge.
But there’s still the key question: how ethical is this?
And will its potential benefits outweigh the very real risks?
The trial will be held under tight medical supervision,
and the selection process will make sure all participants are in accordance with WHO guidelines.
They’ll be healthy young adults ages 18-30,
whose health history would make them unlikely to develop severe disease from the COVID-19 virus.
But there’s still always the very small possibility that someone could become really sick or even die
because we don’t have guaranteed treatment for the disease once someone has it.
And we still don’t fully understand the lingering effects the disease can cause, which may affect some individuals for a really long time.
And there are those who argue that these studies are not useful for evaluating vaccines because
those chosen to take part are so young and healthy…
whereas a vaccine must be proven safe and effective for populations of all ages and health statuses.
Regardless, the UK government has already invested 33.6 million pounds to fund this research,
and they’re not the only ones.
The Belgian government has invested 20 million euros for a similar human challenge trial of its own,
although the planned timing of this is unclear.
The US is developing its own plans for similar trials,
although it’s waiting on more vaccine trial data and no concrete plans are currently in place.
As I wrote this script, over 20 million people have received a vaccine dose in the UK alone,
and by the time you see this it will probably be more.
And the boundary-pushing human challenge trial was approved to begin in March of 2021!
Its proponents hope the information we’ll gain from the trial will give us an advantage over the novel coronavirus
as we fight to make normal life as normal and as safe as possible.
And maybe, it’ll make us better prepared for anything new the virus may throw our way too.
Because the virus isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
What do you think? Would you take part in a human challenge trial?
Should a study like this wait until we have a better way to treat those infected with the disease?
Let us know your thoughts down in the comments below,
and subscribe to Seeker for all your important COVID-19 research updates.
As always, thanks for watching. I’ll see ya next time.