Have your say: Would you deliberately get infected with COVID to help produce a vaccine?

The government is planning to deliberately infect test subjects with coronavirus as part of efforts to find a vaccine quickly.

Studies could take place in January and will involve a small number of young and healthy participants aged between 18 and 30.

As many as 90 participants will be exposed to COVID-19 in a controlled environment and monitored to examine the effects of the virus.

The government said this week it would be providing £33.6m to support the so-called “human challenge studies”, which could yield results as soon as May next year.

The tests are pending approval from regulatory bodies and ethics committees but would be aimed at finding the smallest amount of virus it takes to cause infection in small groups of healthy young people.

If successful, the next phase would be to test vaccines on potential subjects.

The studies will be carried out under strict conditions at the Royal Free Hospital in London and will feature healthy young adults, carefully selected by researchers, who will be compensated for their involvement.

After the initial study, the volunteers will be tracked for a year.

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