Irish company signs deal for major Covid-19 challenge study

The agreement could be a turning point in the debate over whether to conduct such studies, which could help researchers to combat the virus but expose healthy volunteers to potential risks.

The work will give researchers new insights into the coronavirus and the vaccine candidates. Picture: Bloomberg

The first trials to deliberately infect people with the coronavirus to accelerate the development of vaccines could occur in the UK next year.

Britain signed a contract with Irish-based Open Orphan and its London-based unit, hVivo, that paves the way for human challenge trials, the company said. The plan is to manufacture the virus and conduct a study to determine how much of the pathogen to expose volunteers to in the trials.