from
Werner Bartens
Making your body available for research in order to gain knowledge about a disease and its course – that sounds heroic and self-sacrificing at first. However, in the case of the “Human Challenge” the question arises as to whether the effort was actually worth it and what the price was. After all, the reward for the volunteers who made themselves available for an infection with Sars-CoV-2 is known: They are said to have received the equivalent of 5000 euros for letting themselves be infected with corona viruses using nose drops. 36 volunteers between the ages of 18 and 29 took part in the experiment. However, neither the omicron nor the delta variant of the virus was injected into them, but the alpha variant, which is hardly circulating in Europe anymore.