Over 2500 volunteers in UK to get around Rs 4 lakh to participate in 'Human Challenge COVID-19 trials'

Representational Image (Reuters)

London: In a move to help researchers in the study of the coronavirus, over 2,500 volunteers in the United Kingdom (UK) will participate in the 'Human Challenge COVID-19 trials' with each participant receiving  £4,000 (around Rs 4 lakh) for their two to three-week stay. 

The trials are likely to begin in January 2021 and the initial study will have around 90 volunteers under the age of 30, according to the dailymail.co.uk. They will receive a dose of an experimental nasal vaccine before being deliberately infected with COVID-19.

The participants will be aged between 18 and 30 as it's the age group which is said to be least at risk from contracting coronavirus. 

The volunteers in the research led by the Imperial College London will reportedly stay at London's Royal Free Hospital (RFH) where their symptoms will be closely monitored.

The dailymail.co.uk stated that the participants will also be expected to attend follow-up appointments for around a year.  

As per the UK Government in October, they have put over £33.6 million behind the challenge trials.

The study is being designed by hVIVO which is a subsidiary of Dublin-based pharmaceutical company Open Orphan.

Back on October 20, the Royal Free London group chief executive, Caroline Clarke had expressed, "We are proud to be part of this hugely important partnership, which we hope will advance the world's understanding of COVID-19 as we look to rapidly develop life-saving vaccines and treatments." 

She had also said, "The Royal Free Hospital has a great history and tradition of treating and researching infectious diseases and our infectious diseases centre is renowned across the world for its work in this specialist area. We are looking forward to working alongside Imperial College London, BEIS, and hVIVO on such a vital piece of work over the coming months."

The first stage of the project will explore the feasibility of exposing healthy volunteers to COVID-19 and in the initial phase, the aim is to discover the smallest amount of virus it takes to cause a person to become infected, which is called as a virus characterisation study. 

The RFH will also provide services to support the running of the study including the space rental, maintenance, utilities, cleaning, catering, portering and security.

This is to be noted that the Human Challenge Model is used to develop vaccines and treatments across multiple diseases including malaria, typhoid, norovirus, common cold and influenza. 

Meanwhile, more than 6,00,000 people in the UK have received the first dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. This comes amid the detection of the new variant of the virus in the UK.