UK gets two million more doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine

(Reuters) – Britain has secured two million doses of Moderna Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate, which will be available in Europe this spring, the government said on Sunday, in addition to the 5 million doses it has obtained from the American company two weeks ago.

The new deal came a day after Prime Minister Boris Johnson appointed Nadhim Zahawi, a young business minister, as the minister responsible for the deployment of COVID-19 vaccines.

Britain now has access to enough doses of Moderna’s vaccine candidate for around 3.5 million people. Overall, he has access to 357 million doses of vaccine from seven developers, according to a government statement.

“With a wide range of vaccine candidates in our portfolio, we are ready to deploy a vaccine if they receive approval from our drug regulator, starting with those who will benefit the most,” said Minister of Health, Matt Hancock.

Moderna’s investigational vaccine is 94.5% effective in preventing COVID-19 based on interim data from an advanced stage trial.

Deliveries to Britain could start as early as the spring, if the vaccine meets the standards of the Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Agency.

Britain has also ordered 40 million doses of a vaccine developed by Germany’s BioNTech SE and the United States’ Pfizer Inc, which has been shown to be 95% effective in preventing the spread of the new coronavirus.

The UK regulator is expected to approve the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine this week, and deliveries will begin within hours of approval, the Financial Times reported on Saturday.

Britain has also secured 100 million doses of the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca PLC and the University of Oxford and has targeted a deployment to begin before Christmas.