British researchers for the first time conducted experiments on infecting people with SARS-CoV-2. This was reported by the press service of the Imperial College London.

Scientists traced the impact of infection on a person from the moment of infection to getting rid of it. The Human Challenge Program was a collaborative effort between Imperial College London, the Vaccine Task Force and the Department of Health and Social Care.

In the study, 36 healthy, unvaccinated, and non-COVID-19 men and women were given nasal drops of liquid containing a small dose of SARS-CoV-2. The dose was selected to be the minimum necessary for infection, a similar amount of viral particles is contained in the nasal secretions of the most infectious person. The age of the volunteers ranged from 18 to 30 years old, for they used a variant of the virus that was common at the very beginning of the pandemic.

18 volunteers became infected, of which 16 had moderate cold-like symptoms: sneezing, runny nose and sore throat. Some have experienced headaches, muscle pain, fatigue and fever. None of the participants developed severe symptoms, and two participants were weaned from the analysis due to antibody production between the initial analysis and infection.

In 13 volunteers, the sense of smell was temporarily lost, but returned to normal in 90 days in all but three participants. In the remaining three, it continues to slowly recover, all participants were observed for 12 months to detect complications.

Among the main findings of the study: the first symptoms appear very quickly after infection, on average two days after exposure to the virus. Initially, the infection appears in the throat, the number of viral particles peaks after five days, and at this stage there are much more of them in the nose than in the throat.

This study shows that, at a minimum, experimental infection with SARS-CoV-2 does not lead to severe symptoms of COVID-19 in otherwise healthy young adults.

bbabo.Net