Thousands of doses of the new Moderna vaccine to protect against Covid-19 will arrive at Greater Manchester’s mass vaccination centre next week, health bosses say.
Chiefs have revealed that 5,000 doses of the vaccine will be delivered to the National Tennis Centre at the Etihad Campus in east Manchester.
The vaccine was approved for use in January and the first UK dose administered in Wales on Wednesday, but it is yet to be used in England or Scotland.
The Moderna jab will be the third vaccine offered in the UK, joining the Pfizer-BioNTech and the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines.
It comes as it was announced today that under-30s are to be offered an alternative Covid jab to the AstraZeneca vaccine due to evidence linking it to rare blood clots.
However the side-effects are extremely rare and the vaccine’s effectiveness was proven, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said.
The American-made Moderna vaccine is a two-dose jab given at an interval of between four and 12 weeks.
Similar to the Pfizer vaccine, it must be kept in sub-zero temperatures for shipping – at minus 20 degrees – and consequently may be distributed from larger centres with the capacity to store it.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock had said he was delighted the UK rollout of the Moderna vaccine was starting.
“The UK government has secured vaccines on behalf of the entire nation and the vaccination programme has shown our country working together at its best,” he said.
