UK secures additional 2 million doses of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine

In its latest vaccine deal, the United Kingdom has secured an additional two million doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate, the administration confirmed in a statement. The latest addition was made to already purchase five million doses of Moderna’s mRNA-1273 vaccine. As of now, the Boris Johnson led government which is aiming to roll out vaccines in late December,  has secured over 357 million vaccines doses through agreements with several separate vaccine developers including AstraZeneca vaccine – phase 3 clinical trials BioNTech/Pfizer, Sanofi- GSK, Oxford-AstraZeneca amongst others.

_{Vaccine doses secured by British Government, Source: gov.uk}

"With a wide range of vaccine candidates in our portfolio, we stand ready to deploy a vaccine should they receive approval from our medicines regulator, starting with those who will benefit most," health minister, Matt Hancock, said in the statement.

Read: UK PM Appoints Nadhim Zahawi As Minister For COVID-19 Vaccine Deployment

£230 million investment 

According to official data, the country has invested over £230 million into manufacturing any successful vaccine and planning and programming the rollout of any vaccine that gets approval by health officials. On November 28, the government officially appointed Nadhim Zahawi as the minister responsible for COVID-19 vaccine deployment in the country. The announcement came days after Labor Party leaders warned that the position was required to prevent mistakes previously committed over testing and PPE distribution. The news was shared on Twitter by Zahawi who termed it as “big responsibility and operational challenge”.

Read: UK Starts Real-time Review Of Moderna's COVID-19 Vaccine To Reduce 'time To Authorisation'

Zahawi, who is currently serving as the minister of the Department of Business Energy and Industrial Strategy would serve the health ministry. As per Independent, the temporary position is set to last until next summer but could extend. The UK, which is aiming to deploy COVID-19 vaccines by December has reported over 1,500,000 coronavirus cases till now.

Meanwhile, the UK is prepping for the new Three-tier regulation system, which would come into effect from December 1. Under the three-tier system, all parts of the UK will be identified and segregated under three-tiered restrictions—with tier one being medium alert, tier two being high alert and tier three as very high alert—depending on the number of coronavirus cases in the area. 

Read: Moderna's COVID-19 Vaccine Stable At Refrigerator Temperature For 30 Days

Read: Moderna Says Its COVID-19 Shot Is 94.5% Effective