Imperial College calls for UK volunteers to take part in Covid-19 vaccine trial for up to £625

THE Imperial College London and University Hospital Southampton has announced that it is searching for volunteers to take part in its Covid-19 vaccine trial, and offering volunteers up to £625 to take part. It is looking for healthy individuals and aged between 18 and 55 from London, Bristol and Southampton to take part.

In a Twitter post, Imperial Medicine tweeted: “The Imperial College NHS Trust are looking for healthy volunteers to participate in a #COVID19 #vaccine trial, for which they will receive up to £190-£625 reimbursement for time, travel and contribution to the trial.”

The Imperial College London has received £22.5 million for the vaccine project from the government. The University of Oxford is also trialling a Covid-19 vaccine this week, which has also received £20 million of government funding to help with their trials (as reported).

“We’ve put more money than any other country into the global search for a vaccine and, for all the efforts around the world, two of the leading vaccine developments are taking place here at home at Oxford and Imperial,” stated Health secretary Matt Hancock in a press briefing yesterday. “Both of these promising projects are making rapid progress and I’ve told the scientists leading them that we’ll do everything in our power to support.”

The coronavirus has now infected more than 125,000 people in the UK, and is responsible for 17,339 deaths in the UK. “Developing vaccines is an uncertain science, which usually takes years,” added Hancock. However, he assured that manufacturing capacity will be ramped up if one of the vaccine trials is a success and suitable to be rolled out to the public.