UK gives go-ahead to expose volunteers to Covid in medical trial

Reuters Updated - February 17, 2021 at 03:25 PM.

First country in the world to do so

Samples from volunteers are handled in the laboratory at Imperial College in London, Thursday, July 30, 2020. Imperial College is working on the development of a COVID-19 vaccine. Scientists at Imperial College London say they are immunizing hundreds of people with an experimental coronavirus vaccine in an early trial after seeing no worrying safety problems in those vaccinated so far. Dr. Robin Shattock told the Associated Press that he and colleagues had just finished a very slow and arduous process of testing the vaccine at a low dose in a small number of participants and would now be expanding the trial to about 300 people, including those over 75. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

Britain on Wednesday became the first country in the world to allow volunteers to be exposed to the Covid -19 virus to advance medical research into the pandemic.

The trial, which will begin within a month, will see up to 90 healthy volunteers aged 18-30 exposed to Covid -19 in a safe and controlled environment to increase understanding of how the virus affects people, the government said.

Published on February 17, 2021 09:55