Tom Hanks to give blood for COVID vaccine

Forrest Gump star Tom Hanks said he and his wife, Rita Wilson, will donate blood to help find a coronavirus vaccine.

The Hollywood legends battled coronavirus earlier this month after contracting it in Australia, and they are now going to give plasma to try and help fight the global pandemic.

Speaking in an NPR podcast, he said: "A lot of the questions are what do we do now? Is there something we can do? And, in fact, we just found out that we do carry the antibodies. We have not only been approached, we have said, 'Do you want our blood? Can we give plasma?' In fact, we will be giving it now to the places that hope to work on what I would like to call the 'Hank-ccine'."

Meanwhile, the 63-year-old actor previously revealed that Rita struggled with coronavirus more than he did as she had a "much-higher fever" than him, as well as other symptoms.

The Forrest Gump star admits having the virus was "the weirdest thing".

He added: "Whoever it was, doctor, nurse, would come into our air-pressurised room, our isolation rooms. She said, 'How are you feeling?' and I said, 'I just had the weirdest thing.

"I just tried to do basic stretches and exercises on the floor and I couldn't even get halfway through." And she looked at me through her glasses like she was talking to the dumbest human being. And she said, 'You have COVID-19'."