Authorities in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro are currently investigating how a local man was able to receive at least five doses of three different Covid-19 vaccines in just 10 days.

According to official records, the unnamed man started getting Covid-19 vaccines in May, and continued getting new jabs into June, until his vaccination marathon was finally discovered by staff at a vaccination station earlier this month while attempting to get yet another Covid shot. Records obtained by Brazilian media show that the man got his first Pfizer shot on May 12, the second dose of AstraZeneca on June 5, the second dose of Coronavac on June 17, another second dose of Pfizer, on July 9th, and the “first dose” of Coronavac on 21 July. It’s not clear what his sixth dose was supposed to be.

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Six months after catching the coronavirus, a 69-year-old Russian virologist and researcher exposed himself to patients infected with Covid-19 without any protection to see how his immune system would respond.

A former researcher at the Vector Centre of Virology and Biotechnology in Koltsovo, Novosibirsk, Alexander Chepurnov first caught Covid-19 at the end of February 2020. He was on a skiing holiday in  France when he started feeling unwell, with a high fever, sharp chest pain and a complete loss of his sense of smell. There was no way to get a coronavirus test in Europe at the time, so he returned home to Novosibirsk, where he was quickly diagnosed with double pneumonia. He was lucky enough to recover, and a month later an antibody test confirmed that he had been infected with the new virus.

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As part of a global effort to find a vaccine for the Covid-19 coronavirus, pharmaceutical companies are offering thousands of dollars to people willing to voluntarily get infected with a form of the virus and spend two weeks in isolation.

Being the first to come up with an effective vaccine for Covid-19 would undoubtedly prove very profitable for any pharmaceutical company, and many are spending big money to increase their chances of success. For example, several companies as well as public sector organizations have reportedly begun offering volunteers up to $4,500 to get infected with a form of the highly-contagious coronavirus to aid the search for a vaccine. It’s a tempting offer, especially for young, healthy and cash-strapped individuals, but there is a catch – they will be banned from contact with the outside world for at least two weeks.

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