Filenews 24 September 2020
The UK will become the first country in the world to allow covid-19 vaccine testing on volunteers who will be deliberately infected with SARS-Cov-2, the coronavirus that causes the disease.
As the Financial Times reveals, testing is expected to begin in January with government funding at a safe health facility in east London, where young and otherwise healthy volunteers will be quarantined for a few weeks. First they will be given one of the vaccines under trial and after about a month they will be given a dose of coronavirus.
The head of the trials will be the British pharmaceutical testing company hVivo, with the participation of Imperial College. Details are expected to be announced next week.
The aim of the tests will be to evaluate more quickly the most promising vaccines developed against coronavirus.
Speaking to the paper, Oxford University Professor of Medical Ethics Dominic Wilkinson voiced his support for the plan, saying that "we face an unprecedented global threat from Covid and it is a moral imperative to conduct well-controlled'challenge studies' to help develop a vaccine and then identify the best vaccines."
Britain's competent Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency, which must approve these so-called "challenge tests" Come find the child in good week or week, said these could be useful for vaccine development, and that the safety of volunteers is the highest priority.
Source:ffenews/KYPE
