As the world is now wondering about Covid reinfection, Oxford University scientists in the UK are launching a clinical trial to study Coronavirus reinfection. The announcement has been made this Monday April 19, 2021. “We will then be able to understand what kind of immune responses protect against re-infection”, Professor of Vaccinology and Chief Investigator Helen McShane told The Guardian.
Like a first study launched this past February and focusing on 90 volunteers to whom the virus has been inoculated in the nose in droplets, this new study will also focus on healthy people between 18 and 30 years old, who have had coronavirus in the 3 months prior to the beginning of the study so that they still have antibodies. Searchers therefore hope participants have been contaminated by the initial strain of Covid-19 and not by one of the variants.
All along the first step, 24 volunteers – paid, isolated and followed-up for one year – will be given tiny doses of Covid in the nose. A second phase will take place in the summer 2021 with a new group of volunteers.
“Should reinfection be confirmed, or symptoms develop, in either phase of the trial, participants will be given a monoclonal antibody treatment”, The Guardian explains. The goal of the study? Understanding how Covid reinfection is possible, determining more precisely antibodies’ lifespan, and helping laboratories in developing more effective vaccines.
