More than 100 prominent scientists, including 15 Nobel Prize scientists, are calling for exposing healthy volunteers to the coronavirus, to see if vaccines against Covid-19 are already working.
According to the CNBC report, scientists signed an open letter to Dr. Francis Collins, president of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States, inviting him to human “challenge experiments” that they say could “greatly speed up” the development of Covid- 19. Vaccine.
Difficult experiences argue that healthy volunteers are deliberately exposed to the virus, after giving them a vaccine, to test whether the vaccine works to prevent infection.
Such trials are not without controversy, but other prominent experts insist that the benefits of the Quick Track Challenge tests outweigh the risks, and are calling on the US government to authorize them.
Infection of the volunteers with corona virus–
–
The scientists who signed the message, including the director of the Covid-19 vaccine program at Oxford University, said, “Human challenge experiments can provide information much faster than conventional efficacy trials, which take longer months.”
“In such experiments, volunteers continue to receive the vaccine candidate or control, and instead of resuming life as normal and waiting for” catch “the virus, they demand that the volunteers be intentionally exposed to the pathogen under controlled conditions.
The signatories to the message come from a range of disciplines including epidemiology, medicine, economics, and philosophy, and they argue that “the Covid-19 pandemic must be urgently combated on several fronts, but it is difficult to envision strong economic and social recovery in the absence of a vaccine, we are writing to emphasize the importance Great for human challenge experiences as a way to help develop vaccines. “
The letter notes that US lawmakers are already supporting the move. In April, 35 House members called on US regulators to consider allowing volunteers to become infected with coronavirus to accelerate vaccine testing.
–
For his part, NIH institute director Dr. Francis Collins said that the challenge trials “are on the table for discussion – not on the table to start designing a plan.”
The message was also signed by over 2000 volunteers from Challenges organized by 1 Day Sooner. The experts, who developed the principles of an “effective” trial for the human challenge, “must expand the basic protection to protect volunteer rights to health and self-government.”
Guidelines issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) say that human challenge experiments are ethical when they meet certain criteria, and experts said that protection should be clearly present, including that the participants in the experiment are relatively young, healthy and provide medical care High quality with frequent control.
The World Health Organization notes that basic challenge experiences are “conducted within an ethical framework in which informed consent is truly granted” and that they should be conducted with “abundant, cautious and controlled prospects” and stresses that both potential individual risks and benefits, as well as potential societal benefits and risks, must be considered. Such as the release of a pathogen that may not be present in the environment.
Experts said on Thursday that the ethical and scientific review of any challenging trials must be of the highest quality and finally, but more importantly, “the independence of the volunteers is a major concern … This means that the informed consent process must be robust.”
–
