British scientists working at the University of Oxford are preparing to infect several volunteers with a new coronavirus. They want to study the immune response of the observed patients in order to understand how the body protects itself from this virus in all its variants. This should help in the development of effective methods of prevention and treatment of covid.
“With this experiment, we want to determine whether an immune response can prevent a new infection,” explains Helen McShane, professor of vaccinology at the University of Oxford. “The results of the experiment will help us in the future to develop vaccines, test them and start using them even faster.”
All the volunteers have already had covid and they already have antibodies to the coronavirus. Thus, they will get infected with it for the second time. And scientists will observe how their antibodies will cope with artificially introduced viruses.
Up to 64 patients will be infected with the new coronavirus in hospital conditions by scientists at the University of Oxford. They will stay here until the coronavirus completely disappears from their body. That is, three weeks. All this time, the volunteers will be under the constant supervision of doctors. The start of the artificial infection experiment is scheduled for Monday. All its experimental participants will receive a cash reward of 5,000 pounds sterling.
“We do not yet know what exactly protects a person from covid, from a severe form of the disease. This experiment should help us answer this question. We will get a lot of information from this experiment. It will help us develop new vaccines and new methods of treatment, ” said Susan Jackson, the research coordinator.
Scientists expect to learn more about why people react to the coronavirus in different ways, and how the virus affects the immune system. All this should help people finally take the coronavirus under full control.