Scientist infects himself with Covid-19 TWICE to study antibodies - and says results show that hopes of herd immunity are futile

• Dr Alexander Chepurnov, 69, reinfected himself with Covid-19 as part of a test
• His second infection was far more serious and required him to be hospitalised
• He says hopes for herd immunity are futile due to antibodies falling rapidly 
• The Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine professor studies antibodies 

A professor who in an experiment infected himself with Covid-19 to become ill with the virus for a second time says hopes for herd immunity are overblown.

Dr Alexander Chepurnov, 69, first caught coronavirus on a skiing trip to France in February.

After recovering back home in Siberia without requiring hospitalisation, he and his team at the Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine in Novosibirsk launched a study into coronavirus antibodies

They studied 'the way antibodies behaved, how strong they were, and how long they stayed in the body' and found they decrease rapidly, he said. 

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Dr Alexander Chepurnov (pictured left, wearing a gas mask, and right, at the Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine in Novosibirsk, Russia), 69, in an experiment infected himself with Covid-19 to become ill with the virus for a second time and now says hopes for herd immunity are overblown

He said: 'By the end of the third month from the moment I felt sick, the antibodies were no longer detected.

He decided to examine the probability of reinfection.

In the interests of science, Chepurnov became a human guinea pig and deliberately exposed himself to COVID-19 patients wearing no protection, he said.

He said: 'My body's defences fell exactly six months after I got the first infection. The first sign was a sore throat.'

His second infection was far more serious and he was hospitalised.

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State Research Vector Centre of Virology and Biotechnology in Siberia is currently working on Russia's second vaccine

He said: 'For five days, my temperature remained above 39C. I lost the sense of smell, my taste perception changed.

'On the sixth day of the illness, the CT scan of the lungs was clear, and three days after the scan, the X-ray showed double pneumonia.' 

'The virus went away rather quickly. After two weeks it was no longer detected in the nasopharyngeal or in other samples.'

His conclusion based on his own case is that collective or herd immunity is a forlorn hope.

The virus is here to stay, and while vaccines may give immunity this is likely to be temporary.

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The State Research Vector Centre of Virology and Biotechnology in Siberia make Russia's second vaccine against Covid-19 known as EpiVacCorona (pictured) which will require repeat injections to maintain immunity, say its proponents

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This followed the Sputnik V vaccine (pictured being given to a healthcare worker in Altai region, Siberia), now being given to essential workers

He said: 'We need a vaccine that can be used multiple times, a recombinant vaccine will not suit.

'Once injected with an adenoviral vector-based vaccine, we won't be able to repeat it because the immunity against the adenoviral carrier will keep interfering.'

The professor formerly worked at State Research Vector Centre of Virology and Biotechnology in Siberia, makers of Russia's second vaccine against Covid-19 known as EpiVacCorona which will require repeat injections to maintain immunity, say its proponents.

This followed the Sputnik V vaccine, now being given to essential workers.

WHAT IS HERD IMMUNITY AND WILL WE GET IT FOR COVID-19? 

Herd immunity occurs when a disease runs out of room and can no longer spread because enough of the population have been exposed to it, either because they've already had it or have been vaccinated.

If nobody is immune to an illness – as was the case at the start of the pandemic – it can spread like wildfire. But if, for example, half of people have developed immunity there are only half as many people the illness can spread to.

As more and more people become immune the pathogen finds it harder and harder to spread, until its pool of victims becomes so small it can no longer spread at all.

The threshold for herd immunity is different for various illnesses, depending on how contagious they are – for measles, around 95 per cent of people must be vaccinated to it spreading. For polio, which is less contagious, the threshold is about 80-85 per cent.

But because there is no vaccine for Covid-19, it means actively hunting down herd immunity through natural exposure is controversial because it would mean tens of thousands of people would die.

Government advisors have previously said around 60 per cent of Britain would need to be infected to achieve herd immunity — around 40million people. But, in theory, it would mean around 240,000 Britons would die, given that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is estimated to kill around 0.6 per cent of everyone it infects.

And scientists still do not have any firm proof as to how long immunity actually lasts once a person has fought off Covid-19, and doctors around the world have warned of re-infections — even though the evidence suggests they are less serious.

Some research has suggested the herd immunity threshold could actually be as low as 10 per cent, if it spreads more rampantly among the most socially active. This is because they are into contact with others more regularly and are, therefore, more likely to spread the illness.

Herd immunity without a vaccine is considered a controversial route for getting out of the pandemic because it gives a message of encouraging the spread of the virus, rather than containing it.

No 10 was even forced to deny herd immunity was the strategy after Boris Johnson's chief aide Dominic Cummings reportedly confirmed the plan at a private event back in February, allegedly saying it was 'too bad' if it meant 'some pensioners die'.

And leaked emails published last month showed that both Sir Patrick Vallance and Professor Chris Whitty faced backlash from academics over the controversial 'herd immunity' approach that was further discussed in March.

Meanwhile, unlike most European nations, Sweden never imposed a lockdown and kept schools for under-16s, cafes, bars, restaurants and most businesses open when the disease hit Europe in February.

Researchers have even suggested that the Scandinavian nation has since built up a degree of immunity to the virus, with one academic claiming that the virus may now have run out of steam in Sweden.

But data compiled by Our World In Data — a website that has tracked the pandemic since it began — suggests cases have began to rise again over the past few weeks. For instance, Sweden's seven-day average of daily infections stood at 560 on October 1, up from 250 at the start of September.