Moderna Inc anticipates that the immunity induced by the COVID-19 vaccine will protect against the coronavirus variants reported in the UK.
The company plans to run tests to confirm the vaccine’s activity against each strain.
Moderna’s comments came amid the UK government’s plan to put huge swaths of England under the toughest COVID-19 restrictions as a highly infectious variant of the virus grabs the country.
The company expects its vaccine, which was recently granted US emergency approval, will protect against the UK variant based on data so far.
“We have previously tested sera from animals and humans vaccinated with the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine against a number of previous variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that have appeared since the first outbreak of the pandemic and found that our vaccine remains equally effective, “said Moderna.
The US-based company announced it would conduct additional testing of the vaccine in the coming weeks to confirm its expectation.