LONDON (NewsNation Now) — Britain has authorized a coronavirus vaccine developed by Moderna, the third to be licensed for use in the country.
The Department of Health said Friday that the vaccine meets the regulator’s “strict standards of safety, efficacy and quality.”
Three COVID-19 vaccines have now been approved for use in Britain, with Pfizer/BioNTech’s shot and one developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca already being rolled out.
“Vaccines are the key to releasing us all from the grip of this pandemic, and today’s news is yet another important step towards ending lockdown and returning to normal life,’’ Business Secretary Alok Sharma said.
Britain now has 17 million doses of Moderna’s vaccine on order, and supplies will begin to be delivered to the U.K. from spring once Moderna expands its production capability.
“We have already vaccinated nearly 1.5 million people across the UK and Moderna’s vaccine will allow us to accelerate our vaccination programme even further once doses become available from the spring,” health minister Matt Hancock said.
Moderna’s vaccine was 94% effective in preventing disease in late stage clinical trials, and it has already been approved for use in the United States, Canada and the European Union.
Britain’s National Health Service said Thursday that next week it will start using a field hospital specially built at a huge exhibition center in east London in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.
The hospital, which will also be a vaccination hub, was one of several built in the spring in anticipation of hospitals becoming overwhelmed. They were named after Florence Nightingale, widely considered to be the founder of modern nursing, but barely used and were mothballed for use potentially during further waves of the pandemic.
NHS England Chief Executive Simon Stevens said that the pressures facing hospitals in London and the southeast of England are so acute that the Nightingale hospital at the ExCel London will be opened next week to inpatients. A few hundred beds for non-COVID patients are expected to be available at first.
“The entirety of the health service in London is mobilizing to do everything it possibly can but the infections, the rate of growth in admissions, that is what collectively the country has got to get under control,” he said.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report. All reporting by AP staff and Alistair Smout of Reuters.