Thirty people who were willing to contract a deadly virus are helping U.K. researchers understand how Covid-19 attacks the body
The volunteers are under 24-hour study in a hospital residential facility, allowing the researchers to, among other things, measure their viral load twice daily in the nose and throat, perform multiple blood tests, collect urine or stool samples if needed and measure antibodies in the mucus from the respiratory tract and in the blood, according to Peter Openshaw, a professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College London and a co-investigator on the study.
“Because we can take so many different samples, we can get extraordinary insight into how the virus causes disease,” Dr. Openshaw said. “We are learning more about the twists and the tails this virus has and the ways it can cause problems in other organs. It’s all very important in learning how to prevent those complications.”
Human challenge studies are different from randomized clinical trials, the primary way researchers find out if vaccines and other therapies are safe and effective.
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