(Reuters) -Moderna Inc said on Wednesday that it expects the immunity induced by its COVID-19 vaccine to be protective against the coronavirus variants reported in the UK.
The company said it plans to conduct tests to confirm vaccine activity against any strain.
Moderna’s comments came amid the British government’s plan to place large areas of England under its strictest restrictions on COVID-19, while a highly infectious virus variant sweeps the country.
The company said it expects its vaccine, which recently received emergency use authorization in the U.S., to be protective against the UK variant based on data so far.
“We have already tested animal and human sera vaccinated with the Modern COVID-19 vaccine against a number of previous variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that emerged since the first pandemic outbreak and found that our vaccine remains just as effective,” Moderna said. (bit.ly/3pi3kqi)
The US-based company said it would carry out additional testing of the vaccine in the coming weeks to confirm its expectation.
Reporting by Manojna Maddipatla in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel