Get Paid To Have Coronavirus: People Are Being Paid £3,500 To Be Infected With The Deadly Virus

Volunteers could be paid £3,500 to be infected with the coronavirus as scientists race to find a vaccine.

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The Queen Mary BioEnterprises Innovation Centre, London, is recruiting 24 people for the study.

They will be injected with two weaker strains of the deadly virus – which has killed more than 3,800 people worldwide – giving them similar respiratory symptoms.

A jab developed by the company Hvivo will then be tested. Patients will remain in quarantine for two weeks to see if it is successful.

Some 35 other vaccines are in development, and the UK government has promised an extra £46million in the fight against coronavirus.

However, experts have said a vaccine is unlikely to be approved in time to halt the current epidemic, which has so far seen more than 110,000 people across the globe fall ill with COVID-19.

Volunteers can be paid £3,500 to be infected with coronavirus in a study at The Queen Mary BioEnterprises Innovation Centre in Whitechapel
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The UK's medicine watchdog - Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency - will have to agree to the study before it takes place.

Hvivo announced its plans after a man in his 60s became the UK's third death linked to the COVID-19 virus. At least 280 patients have been confirmed to have the infection in the UK.

Boris Johnson has called for ministers to hold an emergency meeting today to discuss their response to the outbreak.

As the race to find a vaccine for the life-threatening virus pushes on, volunteers in London can be paid to help, the Daily Star reports.

For £3,500, the participants will be injected with two less serious strains of the virus, called 0C43 and 229E.

To get the pay check, participants must stay in quarantine for two weeks and eat a restricted diet. They aren't allowed to have contact with anyone else or exercise.

Doctors working on the study will assess their response to the vaccine while wearing protective clothing and ventilators.

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 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.

The vaccine trial is expected to launch by the end of April and will take 14 months but volunteers don't need to be quarantined. They will receive up to $1,100 (£836) in total.

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 be 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 current outbreak.

Over 100 countries have now reported laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19.

Eight new territories have reported cases in the past 24 hours - Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Faroe Islands, French Guiana, Maldives, Malta, Martinique, and Republic of Moldova.

The WHO said the passing of 100,000 cases on Friday was a 'sobre moment'.

The UK is reportedly preparing for as many as 100,000 deaths due to the virus. This figure was accepted by Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon who stressed the government is looking at the 'scientific worst case scenario'.

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