“One droplet the size of a human blood cell containing the virus was enough for the transmission of COVID-19. The incubation period is short, and the virus is released for regarding 7 days from two days following infection.
The US CNN broadcast on the 31st (local time) said that the COVID-19 intentional infection experiment conducted by Dr. Christopher Chu’s team at Imperial College London (ICL), UK, provided valuable insight into Corona 19. It also reported that concerns regarding infection testing appear to have subsided considerably.
The research team published the results of a study on intentional infection with COVID-19 conducted by recruiting healthy volunteers aged 18 to 30 in March last year in the international medical journal ‘Nature Medicine’.
Although the study was conducted with various safety measures, it was controversial from the start because it was deliberately injected into humans to determine their effects on the human body.
The research team selected healthy individuals without any risk factors for COVID-19, such as overweight or obesity, kidney/liver dysfunction, heart disease, and lung/blood problems, among volunteers, and provided sufficient information regarding the study.
In addition, while conducting the experiment step-by-step to minimize the risk, the antiviral drug remdesivir was administered to the first 10 infected people to reduce the possibility of severe progression, and a monoclonal antibody treatment was prepared in case of possible worsening of symptoms.
Using a long, thin tube, a small drop of liquid containing the original Corona 19 virus was injected into the nostrils, and infection and symptoms were observed in a negative pressure room 24 hours a day for 2 weeks.
As a result, it was confirmed that 18 people, regarding half of the participants, were infected with COVID-19.
Two patients were asymptomatic, and all 16 patients with symptoms were mild, such as stuffy nose, sneezing, and sore throat.
However, 83% of corona patients lost their sense of smell to some degree, and nine might not smell at all.
The loss of smell mostly disappeared following 6 months, and one patient improved little by little, but did not return to normal.
Dr. Chu said that none of the study participants had an infection that affected their lungs, possibly because they were young and the amount of virus injected was low.
In this study, it was also found that even a single drop of liquid as small as 10 μm can catch Corona 19, and the incubation period is short, and the virus starts to be released two days following infection, and it is released for regarding six and a half days.
However, some infected people release the virus for 12 days.
The virus was detected in the throat 40 hours following the virus was injected, and the virus began to be detected in the nostrils following 58 hours.
In addition, it was found that the amount of virus emitted following infection was large even before symptoms appeared, and it was found that asymptomatic infected people also released a large amount of virus.
Dr. Chu said that this experiment was very successful and that the next study will be a deliberate infection test to see how the vaccinees react when they are infected with the delta mutation.
Dr. Kathleen Edwards of Vanderbilt University, who was not involved in the study, said in an editorial published together with the journal, “This study not only provides important information regarding the infection and transmission of the COVID-19 virus, but also quells fears of intentional infection testing, It paved the way for us to continue.”
“We don’t do research like intentional infection on babies or on 75-year-olds with chronic lung disease,” he said.
(Photo = Getty Images Korea)