UK to Expose Healthy Volunteers to COVID in World’s First ‘Human Challenge’ Study.<br />On Feb. 17, the country's Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) revealed that the trial has received ethics approval.<br />Up to 90 healthy volunteers between the ages of 18 and 30 will be infected with coronavirus.<br />The BEIS said the study will play a "key role in developing effective COVID-19 vaccines and treatments.".<br />Challenge trials have previously been used for cholera, typhoid, malaria and influenza.<br />Some critics worry about deliberately exposing the volunteers to a virus without a sure-fire treatment.<br />Out of extreme caution, new coronavirus variants will not be used for the study.<br />The version of the virus that's been in circulation since March of 2020 will be utilized since it "has been shown to be of low risk in young healthy adults.".<br />Not only can human infection studies <br />speed up vaccine development, but data <br />from this study will provide key insights <br />into how Covid-19 affects us from as soon <br />as we are infected, which will potentially <br />inform research into new treatments, Dr. Charlie Weller, head of vaccines at UK-based global charitable foundation Wellcome, via CNN
