Ebola vaccine trial seeks volunteers

Would you be willing to be injected with a fragment of the Ebola virus to aid medical research?

Hammersmith Medicines Research (HMR) is looking for volunteers to help it in its search for a vaccine against the deadly disease.

It needs healthy people between the ages of 18 and 65 to be injected with a single protein from the Ebola virus in the hope that it will trigger an immune response.

Those taking part will need to attend 12 outpatient visits over the course of a year, starting next month, and will be paid up to £750.

"There's no specific treatment or cure for Ebola, so an effective vaccine would be an important step in controlling the spread of disease," says the research lab, adding "You won't catch Ebola if you take part in this study!"

Ebola kills more than 90% of those infected, and the latest outbreak in West Africa is estimated to have caused more than 10,000 deaths. It's transmitted very easily from person to person, and there's currently no fully-tested vaccine or cure.

This trial is just one of several that are currently underway, with some already having reached stage three trials in West Africa.

Before new medicines can be given to patients, they must be tested in approved clinical trials. In phase one trials, a small number of volunteers are treated with small doses and checked for side effects.

Phase two trials involve a larger number of people who are actually ill, and phase three trials expand this to, often, thousands of people and compare the results with a placebo.

But taking part in medical research can not only aid humanity, it can make you money too. HMR is also looking for people to take part in an asthma trial, for example, which involves a 14-night stay in the unit, but will pay £3,000.

The NHS has more information about clinical trials, here, with links to registers of trials about to start. There are usually certain requirements - for example, that participants be a certain age or gender, be smokers or non-smokers, or suffer from a particular disease. But inpatients are generally looked after rather well, with everything from fine food to Xboxes.

Participants should remember, though, that there is always a risk when participating in medical trials. Back in 2006, six participants in a trial of immune stimulant TGN1412 nearly died.