Volunteers to be Infected With Coronavirus in World’s First ‘Human Challenge’ Trials

Volunteers in London are to be infected with coronavirus early next year, in the world’s first COVID-19 “human challenge trials,” according to a Financial Times report. The project, first disclosed in the Financial Times last month, was announced publicly on Tuesday morning with an initial £33.6m of government funding.

The aim is to speed up vaccine development by infecting participants with coronavirus in a secure clinic, a month or so after vaccination, rather than waiting for them to be exposed as they go about their normal lives in the community—as happens in conventional clinical trials.

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