UN program signs Moderna deal for 500 million doses starting fourth quarter
U.S. biotech company Moderna will provide up to 500 million doses for the U.N.-backed program to ship COVID-19 vaccines to needy people in low, and middle-income countries, but shipments won’t begin until the fourth quarter, the company and program leaders said Monday.
The advance purchase agreement from Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, came only days after the World Health Organization announced emergency approval of the Moderna vaccine, which paves the way for inclusion in the U.N.-backed COVAX program.
Gavi, a Geneva-based public-private partnership, has been trying to strike deals with vaccine makers while simultaneously trying to persuade rich countries that have secured millions of doses — some of which they aren’t even using — to donate them to poorer ones.
Moderna has already made and fulfilled deals with many rich countries, which have received millions of doses of its vaccine. WHO has repeatedly decried a lack of equity in access to COVID-19 vaccines.