TV star helps out with city vaccines study

A UK-wide vaccine study run by Dundee University has gathered more than 10,000 volunteers since going live last month, with TV host and actor Stephen Fry backing the research.

The study is monitoring all Covid-19 vaccines approved for use in the country.

Launched by the university’s Medicines Monitoring Unit (MEMO Research), the research is looking to help ensure vaccines work as they should, with 11,356 participants having registered to take part.

Anyone in Britain over the age of 18 can sign up before or after Covid-19 vaccination and provide information about their health and wellbeing from the comfort of their own home.

Comedian, actor, writer and broadcaster Stephen Fry is among those who have got behind VAC4COVID and the two-time rector of the university has been retweeting information about the study to his 12.6 million followers in order to encourage as many people as possible to sign up.

Dr Amy Rogers of MEMO Research said: “We are delighted that more than 10,000 people have now signed up for VAC4COVID and are helping to support public confidence in the Covid-19 vaccines.

“Vaccines are crucial for combating the virus, but scientists and doctors still need to understand post-vaccination health experiences.

“We are still needing many thousands more people to sign up to detect if there are any unexpected conditions linked to vaccination.

“People experience new medical conditions all the time, whether they have been vaccinated or not.

“The challenge for medicines regulators is to know how many are related to the vaccination itself and how many would have happened anyway.

“For this reason, we want to be able to track medical events both before and after vaccination, as well as in unvaccinated people.”

Anyone interested in taking part in the study can sign up at http://www. vac4covid.com/.