Help sought with vaccine research

People living in East Antrim and the wider province are being urged to help in the search for a vaccine for COVID-19, by signing up to the NHS COVID-19 vaccine research registry.
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The new vaccine research registry will help large numbers of people to be recruited into trials over the coming months, potentially leading to an effective vaccine being identified and made available to the UK public against coronavirus sooner. It has been developed as part of the UK Government’s Vaccine Taskforce, in partnership with the National Institute for Health Research, NHS Digital, and the NI, Scottish and Welsh Governments.

Dr Janice Bailie, Public Health Agency, said: “Health researchers are currently working to find a vaccine for COVID-19, but without the help of members of the general public willing to participate in vaccine trials, this work will not be able to succeed. The NHS COVID-19 vaccine registry allows people to register their interest and be potentially contacted with an offer to participate in clinical studies. You can sign up to give permission for researchers to contact you about taking part in COVID-19 vaccine studies. By collecting details about people who are interested in taking part in vaccine studies, the registry service will help cut down the time it takes to find volunteers for vaccine studies. This will help us to carry out studies and find a vaccine faster.”

The registry is available to anyone aged 18 or over, living in the UK. To register, people fill in some personal and contact details, and answer a series of basic health screening questions on an NHS web form at www.nhs.uk/researchcontact.