Brits offered £625 to take part in coronavirus vaccine trials

22 April 2020, 15:06 | Updated: 22 April 2020, 15:33

First UK coronavirus vaccines to be trialed immediately reveals Matt Hancock

By Polly Foreman

The government has announced that UK coronavirus vaccine trials will start this Thursday (23 April).

Members of the public are being asked to volunteer to take part in Covid-19 vaccine trials, and they could be paid up to £625.

Teams from The University of Oxford and Imperial College, London, are looking for "healthy volunteers" for their trials, with Professor Sarah Gilbert, from the Oxford Jenner Institute team telling Sky News that she hoped "up to 500 people" would volunteer.

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Anyone who is healthy and between the ages of 18 and 55 can volunteer for the trials, which will take place at Imperial College, London, University Hospital Southampton, and Bristol Children’s Vaccine Centre.

Those wishing to take part in London must live in the west, south west or north west of the capital.

The University of Oxford has published guidelines on who and who cannot take part, which you can read here.

In a press conference yesterday, Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced that human trials of the vaccines will begin on Thursday (23 April).

He said: "Oxford and Imperial are making rapid progress and we will do everything in our power to support them".

The Health Secretary also said that £22million and £20million had been given to Imperial and Oxford's efforts respectively.

He added: "In normal times this would take years [to develop], and I'm very proud of the work done so far.

"Nothing about this process is certain, vaccine developing is trial and error, it's the nature of how they are developed."

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