UK orders 50m doses of ‘variant vaccine’

THE UK Government has ordered 50 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine being developed in response to new variants of Covid-19 should they be needed in future.

Ministers said the partnership with biopharmaceutical company CureVac will boost the UK’s capacity to develop and manufacture variant vaccines. The new order is on top of the 407 million doses of other coronavirus vaccines already secured for the next two years.

The Government announced the deal with biopharmaceutical company CureVac to allow the UK to “swiftly tweak and roll out” existing vaccines. Almost all vaccines developed through the agreement will be modifications of an existing jab by CureVac, which is currently undergoing phase three clinical trials. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Beis) said it will allow large-scale manufacturing in the UK to ramp up quickly to ensure new jabs can be rolled out, if a new strain shows resistance to existing vaccines.