Moderna Covid vaccine will be rolled out in WEEKS, minister says

THE MODERNA coronavirus vaccine will be rolled out in weeks, one minister has revealed.

It will be administered to Brits alongside the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab and the Pfizer/BioNTech offering.

Read our coronavirus live blog for the latest news & updates…

The Mega Agency

Brits could receive the Moderna jab within weeks as it finally arrives in the UK[/caption]

So far in the UK over 31.5 million Brits have received a first dose, with over 5.4 million having had a second.

The Sun’s Jabs Army have helped to deliver jabs across the country and Prime Minister Boris Johnson previously hailed the efforts of volunteers who have helped on site at vaccination centres up and down the country.

Now in a bid to get even more Brits jabbed, vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi today confirmed that the Moderna jab would be added to the UK’s vaccine roster.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast he said the jab will be in deployment “around the third week of April”.

He said: “It will be in deployment around the third week of April in the NHS and we will get more volume in May as well.

“And of course more volume of Pfizer and Oxford/AstraZeneca and we have got other vaccines. We have got the Janssen – Johnson and Johnson – vaccine coming through as well.

“So I am confident that we will be able to meet our target of mid-April offering the vaccine to all over-50s and then end of July offering the vaccine to all adults.”

The Moderna jab was approved for use by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) three months ago.

Britain had ordered 17 million doses of the jab from the US firm.

Trials show the jab is is 94 per cent effective in preventing coronavirus infections.

The Moderna vaccine was hailed as “tremendously exciting” when the US pharmaceutical company posted its phase three clinical trial results in November.

Its trial involved more than 30,000 people, half of whom received the vaccine and the other half received a placebo.

The vaccine demonstrated a 94.1 per cent efficacy in the trial and 90.9 per cent efficacy in participants at risk of severe Covid-19.

Moderna’s jab is easier to distribute than Pfizer’s, which has to be stored at -70C, as it has been shown to last up to 30 days in household fridges.

 

Dr Michael Head, a senior research fellow in Global Health at the University of Southampton previously said that when the Moderna jab arrives in the UK it will “help to ease any bottlenecks or delays in the administration programme”.

He added: “The early administrations in other countries such as the USA have been successful with no significant issues raised in terms of safety.”

The news of more coronavirus jabs being rolled out across the UK comes after it was revealed that the UK regulator could block the jab being used in people under the age of 30.

The MHRA revealed on Friday that the UK as seen 30 blood clot cases in people who recieved the AstraZeneca jab. 

Of those, 22 are the rare CVST kind of clot that caused concern in Europe and eight were other thrombosis events.

That is out of 18.1million doses administered in the UK – making it extremely rare at around one in 600,000.

But despite scientists saying that the benefit of vaccination far out weighs the risks of blood clots – there are now fears that the use of the jab in younger people is “more complicated”.

And today it was revealed by one European official that there could be a “link” between the AstraZeneca and blood clots.

Speaking to Italy’s Il Messaggero newspaper, the European Medicines Agency’s head of vaccines Marco Cavaleri said it is not yet clear what is causing blood clots from the jab.

Mr Cavaleri said: “In my opinion, we can say it now, it is clear there is a link with the vaccine. But we still do not know what causes this reaction.”

The EMA is set to release further information on the jab later this week.