Originally Posted by
Downtime
There is a whole website made up 14000 volunteers for a challenge trail. If the want to go that route they are not gonna have a problem finding volunteers. Clearing the ethics board may by a slightly bigger hurdle. The website is like 1 day sooner.
For clarity...
By "challenge population", I meant a population which would be naturally challenged by the virus in the wild. If the bug dries up in some countries, might have to go elsewhere (Africa is a possibility).
The issue isn't just getting enough exposure in the trial, it's doing it fast enough to get a vaccine approved quickly. They could run a 10-year trial and probably get enough data from that... eventually.
An intentional challenge trial would also be reasonable IMO, the risks are pretty well-known for age and health condition. I'd volunteer. They can do safety trials with the usual age groups (start in the middle, young and healthy, then move out to very young and old) but restrict an intentional challenge trial to the young-ish.
Of course there would be hand-wringers
