British researchers plan to deliberately infect healthy volunteers with lab-grown COVID-19 viruses in order to test potential vaccines, according to a report today in The Washington Post.
U.S. researchers have seen so-called human challenge trials as too risky, but U.K. scientists think it’s worth the risk if the challenge trials speed up the development of a COVID-19 vaccine by even a few months. The human challenge trials will start in January; it is not yet known which vaccines will get tested, according to the Post.
In the U.S., there are presently a handful of potential COVID-19 vaccines in the midst of Phase 3 clinical trials. Officials at companies including Moderna and Pfizer are hopeful about securing an EUA by the end of the year.
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