Human Challenge Trials Could Help Speed COVID-19 Vaccines

The parallel use of human challenge trials and large-scale conventional trials could help accelerate the development of an effective vaccine for COVID-19, NIH vaccine experts say.

A New England Journal of Medicine article, written by members of the NIH’s Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV) Working Group, concluded that the parallel use of challenge trials could be a huge help in answering questions that arise in COVID-19 vaccine trials, such as how long the vaccine’s immunity might last.

However, the challenge trials may only help with the second round of COVID-19 vaccine candidates after an initial one is approved because it could take one to two years to develop robust models that meet the criteria for limiting risk to volunteers, the working group said.

Read the NEJM article here: bit.ly/2NTIyMQ. — Suz Redfearn