UK approves Moderna vaccine as third jab against COVID-19

London: The UK's medicine regulatory authority on Friday approved a third COVID-19 vaccine for use in the country, made by the American biotech company Moderna which has already been rolled out in the US. It can now start being rolled out alongside the Pfizer/BioNTech and Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines already being administered by the National Health Service (NHS) following approvals last year.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said the approval of the Moderna vaccine follows a thorough and rigorous assessment by its teams of scientists, including advice from the independent Commission on Human Medicines, which reviewed in-depth all the data to ensure this vaccine meets the required standards of safety, quality and effectiveness .

Having a third COVID-19 vaccine approved for supply following a robust and thorough assessment of all the available data is an important goal to have achieved and I am proud that the agency has helped to make this a reality, said Dr June Raine, MHRA Chief Executive.

I want to echo that our goal is always to put the protection of the public first. Once in use, all COVID-19 vaccines are continually monitored by the MHRA. This ensures that the benefits in protecting people against COVID-19 continue to far outweigh any potential side-effects, she said.

The UK imposed mandatory COVID-19 tests for international travellers as part of new measures announced on Friday to contain the spread of new variants of Coronavirus circulating internationally.

The UK remains under a nationwide lockdown since Wednesday.