LONDON, UK—Results of the world’s first COVID challenge trial have been released in a Nature Medicine preprint. The study started in February 2021, and has been run as a partnership between hVIVO, Imperial College London, the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, and the United Kingdom government’s Vaccine Taskforce and Department of Health and Social Care. This publication is the first public release of data from the study. hVIVO’s press release, including a summary of the findings of interest, can be read here.
1Day Sooner began advocating on behalf of volunteers who wanted to participate in COVID challenge studies in April 2020. We are excited to see the results of this study finally published and are grateful to the study team and study participants. While 1Day had no role in running the study, a number of our volunteers (some quoted below) have spoken widely about their pride in their participation. We appreciate the research team’s boldness in being the first team to run COVID human challenge studies, and congratulate the United Kingdom for being the only nation to run coronavirus challenge studies since the start of the pandemic.
In this infectious dosing study, participants were exposed to an early strain of SARS-CoV-2 and kept under medical observation so immune response data could be collected and analyzed. The preprint contains data describing participants’ viral load, symptoms, and period of contagiousness, as well as the sensitivity and specificity of lateral flow tests.
The results of this challenge trial are fascinating, and would have been even more useful early in the pandemic, when there was immense uncertainty about contagiousness and the use of lateral flow tests, among other items this study examined. 1Day had called for greater transparency for these studies (as published in the Guardian and the British Medical Journal) and urged an earlier pre-print of this important data. These results demonstrate the importance of using challenge trials early in emergency situations and treating them with urgency once they are underway.
Now that the COVID challenge model has finally been established and better treatments exist, the model needs to be expanded to new strains and scaled up to test universal coronavirus vaccines, intranasal vaccine formulations, and new antiviral treatments. Dr. Fauci has endorsed the use of common cold coronavirus challenge models in developing universal vaccines, and Dr. Dean Smith, Section Head of the Combination Vaccines review division in Health Canada, suggested human challenge as a potentially important approach to authorizing universal coronavirus vaccines at a recent WHO global consultation on the topic.
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“Participating in this study was the most impactful thing I’ve ever done. I hope the data, assisted by the efforts of researchers to be as transparent about the research process as possible, will help us regain more power over the virus. Allowing volunteers to take reasonable risks for the good of others is a crucial component of future pandemic preparedness, and people like me are a lesson researchers, policymakers, and public servants must take on board.”—Alastair Fraser-Urquhart, Imperial College London COVID challenge trial participant, 1Day Sooner UK chapter manager
“I feel very fortunate to have participated in a challenge trial like this that has amazing potential to make a big difference to so many people. Initially weighing up the risks and benefits was difficult, but I would do it again without question.”—Amanda Woods, Imperial College London COVID challenge trial participant
“Having participated in challenge study I have experienced first hand how taking on risks as an individual can have an effective impact in the real world, saving lives and developing research greatly. I hope that my participation will not only aid in the fight against COVID but further prove that challenge studies are a vital tool in a fight against disease for now and in preparation for the future.”—Jacob Hopkins, Imperial College London COVID challenge trial participant
“It was a thoroughly enjoyable, intriguing and rewarding experience. From the initial contact, I felt like I was being looked after by a team of doctors and nurses who were very passionate and engaged in the trial, which was great to see!”—Paresh Patel, Oxford University COVID challenge trial participant
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