Mod­er­na chips in fur­ther on African vac­cine sup­ply — but ad­vo­cates are call­ing for even more

In a sign of its grow­ing com­mit­ment to the con­ti­nent, Mod­er­na will sup­ply up to 110 mil­lion dos­es of its Covid-19 vac­cine to the African Union, the com­pa­ny an­nounced Tues­day. And CEO Stéphane Ban­cel said it’s just the first step.

“We be­lieve our vac­cine can play an im­por­tant role in ad­dress­ing the needs of low-in­come coun­tries giv­en its com­bi­na­tion of high Phase 3 ef­fi­ca­cy against COVID-19, strong dura­bil­i­ty in the re­al-world ev­i­dence, and su­pe­ri­or stor­age and han­dling con­di­tions. We rec­og­nize that ac­cess to COVID-19 vac­cines con­tin­ues to be a chal­lenge in many parts of the world and we re­main com­mit­ted to help­ing to pro­tect as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble around the globe,” Ban­cel said in a state­ment.

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