The UK’s medicines regulatory agency, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), approved the vaccine “after months of rigorous clinical trials involving tens of thousands of people and extensive analysis of the vaccine’s safety, quality and effectiveness,” it said. Ministry of Health. wrote.
“This is also great news and another weapon in our arsenal to tame this terrible disease,” Health Secretary Matt Hancock said in a statement.
The UK government has agreed to purchase an additional 10 million doses of the Moderna vaccine on top of the previous 7 million order, bringing the total to 17 million, the release said.
Stocks will be delivered to the UK from this spring as Moderna expands production capacity, it added.
“We have already vaccinated nearly 1.5 million people in the UK and the Moderna vaccine will allow us to further accelerate our vaccination program once doses become available from spring,” said Hancock.
The results are similar to those of Pfizer / BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine, as they use the same technique to activate the body’s immune system.
The vaccines deliver messenger RNA or mRNA, a genetic recipe for creating the spikes that sit on top of the coronavirus. Once injected, the body’s immune system makes antibodies against the spikes. If a vaccinated person is later exposed to the coronavirus, those antibodies must be ready to attack the virus.
Moderna’s vaccine can be stored at minus 20 degrees Celsius. Other vaccines, such as those for chicken pox, should also be kept at that temperature.
On Wednesday, the European Commission also authorized the use of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine in the 27 member states of the European Union, hours after the European Medicines Agency recommended it.