COVID-19 vaccine
COVID-19 vaccineiStock

As Israel continues its efforts to develop a domestically-produced coronavirus vaccine to bolster the country’s supply, researchers working on the vaccine are offering cash payments to volunteers to entice participants in the second stage of testing.

According to a report by Israel Hayom Monday morning, the Israel Institute for Biological Research is offering monetary remuneration to each participant in the second stage of clinical testing for each day they visit the institute’s labs - plus travel expenses.

The compensation is intended to worth a typical wage for a full day’s work, and starts at 495 shekels ($155.53) per visit, thus totaling at least 6,435 shekels ($2,021.92) over the anticipated 13 visits.

The second stage of clinical testing is set to begin within the next month, with experts estimating that stage three – during which tens of thousands of test subjects will be examined to ascertain the vaccine’s effectiveness – will begin during the summer.

Since most of Israel’s population is expected to be vaccinated against COVID already by the summer, the institute may be forced to seek test subjects outside of Israel for the test vaccine.