New York Times says researchers at Imperial College London plan to intentionally give healthy volunteers the virus causing COVID-19. However, they will first inoculate them with one of several vaccines. That’s because they want to test the effectiveness of those vaccines in early 2021. Their proposal raises questions concerning the morality of a vaccine test deliberately infecting volunteers, when there is currently no cure.
UK Money Behind Vaccine Test Deliberately Infecting Volunteers
The ‘human challenge’ as the team calls it has $44 million UK government funding. Their hope is to narrow down the large number of vaccines currently trialing. Their idea is to expose volunteers to the virus. As opposed to vaccinated people encountering it in their homes, and communities during normal social interaction.
The study will begin by determining the minimal virus dose necessary to achieve an infection. It will then gradually increase the dose on up to 90 healthy volunteers from 18 to 30 years until it determines a level that reliably infects them. Then and only then will the main vaccine test begin, deliberately infecting compensated volunteers.
Vaccine Experts Disagree Over the Ethics of These Trials
Researchers will start immunizing volunteers with one of several vaccines once the first phase is complete. They will then deliberately infect them with the benchmark volume of virus. The UK government will decide which vaccines to test, although its decision is pending.
New York Times says ‘experts in medical ethics are divided over whether such a study is acceptable’. This is ‘largely because there is no highly effective treatment for Covid-19’ as things stand. Moreover, the severity of the disease is unpredictable, although older people are generally more vulnerable.
We reserve judgement on what could be a ground-breaking leap forward, if it works. We agree we need a proven COVID-19 vaccine as soon as practically possible. But we should avoid rushing through the process unless we are confidently on the right track.
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