‘Healthy adults will be re-infected to check immune response’

People aged between 18 and 30 who have previously been naturally infected will be re-exposed to the virus in a controlled environment

Healthy young adults who have previously contracted COVID-19 will be recruited to take part in a new human challenge trial to study how the body’s immune system reacts to the deadly Coronavirus, for a better understanding to protect against the virus and also for more accurate tests. The Oxford University-led human challenge trial will look at what kind of immune response can stop people from becoming re-infected and also how the immune system reacts second time round. 

People aged between 18 and 30 who have previously been naturally infected will be recruited and re-exposed to the virus in a safe, controlled environment and paid around 5,000 pounds to be quarantined for 17 days at a hospital.

“Challenge studies tell us things that other studies cannot because, unlike natural infection, they are tightly controlled. When we re-infect these participants, we will know exactly how their immune system has reacted to the first COVID infection, exactly when the second infection occurs, and exactly how much virus they got,” said Helen McShane, Professor of Vaccinology at the Department of Paediatrics, University of Oxford and Chief Investigator on the study. The study will take place in two phases with different participants in each phase. 

The first phase, which will start this month, will establish the lowest dose of virus which, in approximately 50 per cent of people who have previously been naturally infected, can take hold and start replicating but produce little or no symptoms. In the second phase of the study, expected to start later this year, all participants will be infected with the standardised dose of virus which was established in phase one.

Prof. McShane said her team will begin with defining very carefully the baseline immune response in the volunteers, before infecting them. They will then infect them with the dose of virus chosen from the first study and measure how much virus we can detect after infection.  Agencies

UK PM cancels trip to New Delhi

British PM Boris Johnson has cancelled his trip to New Delhi which was scheduled for next week, in view of the severity of the second wave of the pandemic in India. An official statement of the ministry of external affairs said, “In view of the prevailing COVID situation, it has been decided that PM of UK will not visit India next week.”

HK bans flights from 3 countries

The Hong Kong government has announced its decision to ban commercial passenger flights from India, Pakistan and the Philippines for 14 days from Tuesday as these countries were “extremely high-risk for COVID-19”. 

EU to get 100 mn doses of vaccine

BioNTech and its US partner Pfizer say they will provide 100 million more doses of their Coronavirus vaccine to the European Union this year. The announcement offers a boost to the EU’s sluggish vaccine rollout.

5,62,978
No. of new cases reported globally in the past 24 hours

14,15,25,400
Total no. of cases worldwide

30,22,126
Total no. of deaths worldwide

Source: WHO/Johns Hopkins

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