(Reuters) -Moderna said on Friday it would supply an additional 20 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to the Gavi vaccine alliance for distribution through the COVAX facility in the second quarter of 2022.
With the additional doses, a total of up to 136.5 million doses would be supplied to Gavi, Moderna said.
The COVAX initiative is co-led by Gavi, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).
Moderna also said it would speed up supply of 20 million doses to COVAX to make 54 million doses available to the vaccine-sharing scheme by the end of 2021.
These doses were a part of Moderna’s previous agreement with Gavi and were originally scheduled to be delivered in the first quarter of 2022, the company said.
The Gavi vaccine alliance retains options that allow it to purchase up to 650 million doses of Moderna’s vaccine for delivery through 2022, Moderna said.
(Reporting by Amruta Khandekar; Editing by Amy Caren Daniel and Maju Samuel)
