Moderna Inc has said it expects that the immunity induced by its Covid-19 vaccine would be protective against the coronavirus variants reported in the UK.

The company said it plans to run tests to confirm the vaccine’s activity against any strain.

The company said it expects its vaccine, which was recently granted the United States emergency use authorisation, 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," Reuters quoted the company as saying.