If the British health authorities give their consent, 90 young English people aged 18 to 30 and in good health will be injected with the coronavirus in order to participate in a clinical trial on the reactions of the immune system. The trial, which has received the approval of the ethics committee, could begin as early as next month. The volunteers will be inoculated with the virus after being placed under surveillance in a London hospital. The tests will help scientists determine the smallest amount of coronavirus needed to cause an infection and how the immune system responds. This is in order to develop new vaccines later.
How is it going to happen ?
Finding out how the virus develops in the nose and analyzing the very early stages of infection in humans before symptoms appear are the two main goals.
The volunteers will be examined by doctors at Imperial College London to check that they are in good health and that they have not been infected with the virus before. They will receive the first fore of the virus (and not one of its variants) in the form of a nasal spray, then they will spend 14 days in hospital quarantine, while being closely monitored by a medical team. The follow-up will then last for a year, with the volunteers being paid up to 4,500 pounds sterling (approximately 5,200 euros) for the time allocated to this clinical trial.
Other volunteers could then receive the variant to understand how it is transmitted so quickly from one individual to another.
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