The UK allows human challenge testing for Covid-19, but at what cost?

When the UK Covid Vaccination Challenge was first announced – a study designed specifically to introduce healthy people with SARS-CoV-2 – I and many of my colleagues in science criticized me and many of my colleagues. and public health approach. Human challenge tests can be helpful, but they are a threat to healthy volunteers. It is only when we are absolutely certain that the benefits outweigh the risks that we should proceed. This week, the UK government confirmed that the trial would go ahead as planned, but we are nowhere near the threshold worth such a risky attempt.

The risk to the 90 healthy volunteers recruited for this test is real. The press release announcing the challenge states that “voluntary safety is paramount” and highlights how only healthy young adults can be selected. But he avoids the direct evidence that even a mild case of Covid in a healthy young adult can lead to long-term lung damage and other potentially life-threatening symptoms. For it to be worth it to put 90 healthy young people at risk for lifelong illness, the benefits must be real. But the fact is that this test seems almost pointless.

Since the introduction of the human challenge testing case for Covid-19 last year, our understanding of the virus has improved dramatically. We now know that the virus can change, and can change quickly. One of the main reasons for this vaccine challenge, at least in terms of their release, is “the minimum amount of virus needed to cause infection, which gives doctors a greater understanding of Covid-19 and helps by supporting the diffuse response by supporting the vaccine. and treatment development. “But with what we know about SARS-CoV-2 today, it is very likely that the virus used in the challenge that is expected to start in a few weeks’ time will be very different from the virus which the world will deal with when the results are released.

Take the RA version of the virus, called B.1.1.7. That virus is known to be up to 75% more mobile than any previously known species. We know from another study in a laboratory setting that SARS-CoV-2 can modulate beyond that transmission rate to be up to 600 times more mobile than any of the observed variables. so far. So whatever data we find from this test could be talked about within days, weeks, or months, when a newer, more mobile variant of the world is possible on infectious with much smaller grains.

Beyond that basic fact, it will not be necessary to actively capture healthy people when we are going to get real comparison data to work with the millions of people who have already been vaccinated and hundreds of millions more who will be vaccinated soon. What could be the reason behind the active infection of healthy people while the same data could be collected through other, less risky means?

I can’t help but think that the answer to profit is nothing more than public health. A vaccination challenge would allow the UK to test its own national vaccine, the Oxford vaccine, against the virus, potentially putting life-threatening benefits at risk. I hope hopefully this is not the case. But I have yet to read another philosophy that makes more sense. Yes, we need to develop new and second-generation vaccines. Yes, we need the data to support their development. But the risk of the lives of eighty healthy volunteers is not the way to go, when we have so many other options at hand.