The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has approved the vaccine ‘after months of rigorous clinical trials involving tens of thousands of people and an extensive analysis of the vaccine’s safety, quality and efficacy’, the Department of Health said. wrote.
“This is further good news and another weapon in our arsenal to tame this terrible disease,” Health Secretary Matt Hancock said in a statement.
The British government has agreed to buy an additional dose of 10 million doses of Moderna vaccine in addition to its previous order of 7 million, which takes the total to 17 million, the announcement reads.
Supplies will start delivering to the UK from this spring as soon as Moderna increases its production capacity, he added.
“We have already vaccinated almost 1.5 million people in the UK and Moderna’s vaccine will enable us to accelerate our vaccination program even further once doses are available from the spring,” Hancock said.
Its 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 produce messenger RNA, or mRNA, which is a genetic recipe for making nails that sit on top of the coronavirus. Once injected, the body’s immune system makes antibodies against the nails. If a vaccinated person is later exposed to the coronavirus, those antibodies must be ready to attack the virus.
The Moderna vaccine can be kept at minus 20 degrees Celsius. Other vaccines, such as chickenpox, should also be kept at room temperature.
On Wednesday, the European Commission also approved the use of the Modern Coronavirus vaccine in the 27 member states of the European Union, hours after the European Medicines Agency recommended it.