Moderna says it will provide as many as 500 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to the United Nations' COVAX program to inoculate people in lower-income countries.
It comes after Moderna's vaccine was recently approved by the World Health Organization for emergency use.
The company announced the agreement with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance on Monday. Gavi is supporting the COVAX program.
Under the agreement, Moderna will supply COVAX with 34 million doses in the fourth quarter of 2021, with an option for Gavi to buy an additional 466 million doses in 2022 at Moderna's "lowest tiered price."
"This is an important milestone as we work to ensure that people around the world have access to our COVID-19 vaccine," said Stéphane Bancel, CEO of Moderna.
"We recognize that many countries have limited resources to access COVID-19 vaccines. We support COVAX's mission to ensure broad, affordable and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines and we remain committed to doing everything that we can."
A recent CDC study found that Moderna, along with the Pfizer vaccine, was 94% effective at preventing seniors from getting seriously sick, validating the results from the company's own clinical trial.
Public health experts say that ensuring that people all over the world have access to the vaccine is crucial to slowing down the virus' transmission and ability to mutate into more harmful versions.
