LONDON — The U.K. has authorized for use another coronavirus vaccine amid growing concerns about a rise in new infections as the variant of the virus first identified in India spreads around the country.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency says the single-dose vaccine made by Johnson & Johnson has met “the expected standards of safety, quality and effectiveness.”

That takes the number of vaccines in the U.K.’s armory to four following earlier approvals for the two-dose regimens developed by Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, and Moderna.

The latest approval has come at a time when the U.K. has seen a modest uptick in new cases in recent days as a result of the so-called Indian variant, which is considered to be more transmissible.

The U.K. has been rapidly rolling out vaccines since December, with nearly 58% of the population having received at least one dose of vaccine and 35% having received two.