On May 3, 2021, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance announced that it had signed an advance purchase agreement with Moderna for its mRNA vaccine against COVID-19 (COVID-19 Vaccine Moderna). The agreement is for 500 million doses of the Moderna vaccine, secured on behalf of the COVAX Facility. Initial supply under the agreement is for AMC-eligible participants, with the potential to allocate and supply to self-financing participants in the future.

The Moderna vaccine has recently received WHO Emergency Use Listing, making it eligible to be supplied to COVAX Facility participants. Supply via this APA is expected to commence in Q4 2021, with a total of 34 million doses available in 2021 and up to 466 million doses in 2022. The agreement also contains options to potentially access doses of variant-adapted vaccine in the future.

Moderna’s vaccine is part of the COVAX R&D portfolio. In January 2020, COVAX co-lead CEPI provided initial investment in Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine programme to support production of the first clinical trial materials.

Following on from the negotiation and signing of the APA between Gavi and Moderna, which secures these doses for the participants of the COVAX Facility, a long-term agreement will be signed between UNICEF and Moderna to enable to the logistics of procurement and delivery of these doses to Gavi COVAX AMC participants.

The announcement comes alongside news that Sweden plans to donate 1 million fully paid doses of the AstraZeneca(AZ)/Oxford vaccine to COVAX, responding to the call for countries to share doses urgently with COVAX to help address immediate-term supply delays. Doses shared in the short-term will help ensure AMC participants can administer second doses of the AZ/Oxford vaccine to high risk groups such as health care workers.