Scientists based in Whitechapel, United Kingdom are looking for 24 members of the public who are willing to volunteer to be infected with Coronavirus in an experiment to develop a vaccine for the deadly respiratory virus that is slowly turning into a global Pandemic.
The Queen Mary BioEnterprises Innovation Centre in Whitechapel, London is recruiting 24 people for the study and according to the Daily Mail, they will be compensated with £3,500, an equivalent of approximately 17 Million Uganda Shillings.
They will be injected with two weaker strains (0C43 and 229E) of the deadly virus – which has killed more than 4,300 people worldwide and infected 119,246 – giving them similar respiratory symptoms
Participants in the experiment must stay in quarantine for two weeks and eat a restricted diet.
They will not be allowed to have contact with anyone else during the exercise.
The scientists will then assess their response to the vaccine while wearing protective clothing and the room is expected to be well ventilated.
World Health Organization (WHO) has listed about 35 vaccine candidates but Hvivo is not among them.
Up to 35 other vaccines are being developed and the UK government has pledged an equivalent of Sh6.2 billion in extra funds to aid in the fight against coronavirus.
Hvivo announced its planned experiment with the vaccine after a man in his 60s became the UK’s third death linked to the deadly COVID-19 virus.
The testing is part of a $2bn global effort to find a vaccine for coronavirus, as Europe has experienced a huge surge in cases in the past two weeks.
Around 35 vaccine candidates have been listed by the World Health Organization (WHO), however, Hvivo is not included.
Cathal Friel, executive chairman of Hvivo's parent company, Open Orphan, claim the company is at the 'forefront of the fight against the outbreak'.
Other drugmakers come from across the world, using the insight of scientists from the University of Oxford, Imperial College London, University of Queensland, and Baylor in New York to name a few.
Researchers in Seattle have also begun recruiting healthy volunteers to participate in a clinical trial for a vaccine developed by the biotechnology company, Moderna Therapeutics, according to The Wall Street Journal.
All the potential jabs are in the pre-clinical stage, which means they haven't been studied in humans yet. It takes years to develop new treatments for illnesses because new medicines must be extensively researched in a series of phases.
Usually, thousands of people have to take part in the clinical research phase to monitor safety, tolerability, and effectiveness in people. Even if they prove successful, they must be produced on a large scale, which needs billions of dollars and is vetted by regulators.
Because vaccines for COVID-19 are still in the making across the world, it is unlikely any will be finished in time to halt the surging epidemic outbreak. Over 100 countries have now reported laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19.
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