Moderna Inc said it expects that the immunity induced by its COVID-19 vaccine would be protective against the coronavirus variants reported in the UK, according to a Reuters report. The company, according to the report, said it plans to run tests to confirm the vaccine’s activity against any strain.
Earlier, CNN had reported that Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc are testing their COVID-19 vaccines against the new fast-spreading version of the virus that has emerged in Britain. Moderna expects immunity from its vaccine to protect against the variants and is performing more tests in the coming weeks to confirm, the company said in a statement to CNN.
The company said it expects its vaccine, which was recently granted the U.S. emergency use authorization, to be protective against the UK variant based on data to date.
“We have already 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 emerged since the first outbreak of the pandemic and found our vaccine to remain equally effective,” Moderna said.
Meanwhile, a new, potentially more infectious variant of the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has been found in Britain in cases linked to South Africa, British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Wednesday.
South Africa’s health department said last week that a new genetic mutation of the virus had been discovered and might be responsible for a recent surge in infections there.
“Thanks to the impressive genomic capability of the South Africans, we’ve detected two cases of another new variant of coronavirus here in the UK,” Hancock told a media briefing.
“Both are contacts of cases who have travelled from South Africa over the past few weeks.”