Last year, the COVID-19 pandemic begun. Scientists and researchers around the world were seemingly caught off guard and many scrambled to find the answers to better understand how the virus is passed along to humans, what are the effects, and if there are any long-lasting consequences.
A lot about the virus is still unknown, but that’s about to change soon. The UK is expected, in the following weeks, to begin the world’s first human COVID-19 trials. We’re not talking about vaccine trials, but rather we’re talking about a trial that would deliberately infect 90 healthy individuals aged 18-30 in a safe and controlled environment.
The goal is to establish exactly how much of the virus is needed in order to cause an infection, how it is passed from one person to another, and to see how the body’s immune system responds to it. The participants in the trial will be monitored 24-hours a day by medics and scientists.
Researchers and doctors are hoping that this trial will provide them with a better understanding of COVID-19 and what kind of immune response is needed in order to offer protection against the disease. It should be noted that these “challenge trials” aren’t new and have been run in the past to develop treatments for a variety of diseases.
Filed in . Read more about Coronavirus, Covid-19, Health, Science and Social Hit. Source: theguardian