UK looks to expose people to new coronavirus to speed up vaccine research
- So-called ‘human-challenge’ studies recruit volunteers to test effectiveness of vaccine candidates
- Scientists are still learning about a pathogen that has killed almost 1 million worldwide
The UK government was considering carrying out the first studies that would deliberately expose healthy people to the coronavirus in a bid to accelerate the development of a vaccine.
The idea of so-called “human-challenge” trials has gained momentum as the pathogen has spread around the world, sparking a debate over what kind of sacrifice was acceptable and the benefits the tests could bring. A growing number of volunteers have signed up to take part in such studies, should researchers decide to proceed.
“We are working with partners to understand how we might collaborate on the potential development of a Covid-19 vaccine through human-challenge studies,” a government representative said on Wednesday. “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.”
Coronavirus: why China has left its options open for WHO’s global vaccine plan
Waiting for participants to become exposed to the illness to figure out whether a vaccine works can take months or even years. Challenge tests can hasten the work by placing volunteers in the path of the virus, though scientists are still learning about a pathogen that has killed almost 1 million people in just months.
01:39
China prepares for coronavirus vaccine mass production though clinical trials are not yet complete
Such tests also raise ethical questions about exposing people to a potentially fatal virus, and whether some test subjects would receive a placebo for control purposes.
The government declined to provide further details, including about which vaccines would be involved.
UK-funded studies were expected to begin in January at a facility in London, the Financial Times reported. In Britain, the University of Oxford is working with AstraZeneca on a Covid vaccine, one of the front-runners in the global effort.
Imperial College London was also working on an experimental inoculation.
Any trials conducted in the UK have to be approved by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the health care regulator which looks into safety and protocol.
As the pursuit for a vaccine accelerates, calls grow for transparency in clinical trials
The industry has seen discussions in recent months about potentially having to inject healthy volunteers with the novel coronavirus if drug makers struggled to find enough patients for final trials.
The FT report said that volunteers would first be inoculated with a vaccine and later receive a challenge dose of the coronavirus. It did not name the vaccines that would be assessed in the project.
A handful of vaccines already are in final testing in the US and other countries. In one of the largest studies yet, Johnson & Johnson aims to enrol 60,000 volunteers to test its single-dose approach in the US, South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. Other candidates in the US require two shots
With the move, Johnson & Johnson becomes the tenth maker globally to conduct a Phase 3 trial against Covid-19, and the fourth in the US.
Final-stage testing of the experimental vaccine made by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, remains on hold in the US as officials examine whether it poses a safety risk.
US President Donald Trump has been promising that a coronavirus vaccine would be approved within weeks – a gambit to turn a pandemic inoculation into an October surprise for his struggling re-election campaign.
Chinese drug firm aims to roll out US$88 vaccine this year
US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention head Robert Redfield said he expected there to be about 700 million doses of US vaccines available by late March or April 2021, enough for 350 million people.
“I think that’s going to take us April, May, June, you know, possibly July, to get the entire American public completely vaccinated,” Redfield told the US Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
Bloomberg and Reuters
