An effort is being made to garner support for intentionally infecting humans with coronavirus in order to speed up the development of a coronavirus vaccine.
According to Scientific American, an effort called “1 Day Sooner” has attracted nearly 1,500 potential volunteers who would be ready to participate in a “human-challenge trial” that would see them intentionally be infected with coronavirus.
According to the report, while typical vaccine trials entail giving thousands of people either a vaccine or placebo and then tracking who becomes infected, a “human-challenge trial” theoretically could speed up the testing process by giving a smaller group of volunteers a vaccine, then infecting them with the virus to judge the vaccine’s efficacy.
“We want to recruit as many people as possible who want to do this, and pre-qualify them as likely to be able to participate in challenge trials should they occur,” 1 Day Sooner co-founder Josh Morrison, also the executive director of organ-donation advocacy group Waitlist Zero, said according to Scientific American.
“At the same time, we feel that the public policy decisions around challenge trials will be better informed if they highlight the voice of people interested in participating in such trials.”
Morrison said that many of the volunteers “note that they recognize the risk but believe the benefits of vaccine acceleration are so tremendous that it is worth it to them.”