WHO-led COVAX vaccine scheme agrees new supply deal with India's Serum (updated)
03/02/2021 14:06
(Adding details)
By Stephanie Nebehay and Kate Kelland
GENEVA/LONDON, Feb 3 (Reuters) - India's Serum Institute
will supply 1.1 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines developed by
AstraZeneca AZN.L and Novavax NVAX.O to the COVAX vaccine
scheme as part of a new long-term deal, the head of the U.N.
Children's Fund said on Wednesday.
UNICEF chief Henrietta Fore said the shots would be
delivered over a number of years at the cost of about $3 per
dose for low- and middle-income countries.
They would be produced by Serum under a technology transfer
agreement, she said in a briefing.
The deal is on top of the goal of distributing 2 billion
doses of vaccines to poor countries this year under the COVAX
facility, which is co-led by GAVI, the World Health
Organization, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness
Innovations (CEPI) and UNICEF.
UNICEF has also stockpiled 500 million syringes among other
equipment in preparation for the roll-out of shots starting in
the next few weeks, Fore said. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL8N2K949T
CEPI is working with vaccine developers to be as ready as
possible to deal with changes needed to vaccines to ensure they
work against more infectious COVID-19 variants that have emerged
in the past few months, deputy CEO of CEPI Frederik Kristensen
told the briefing.
(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Kate Kelland in
London;
Writing by Josephine Mason; Editing by Toby Chopra and Catherine
Evans)
((Josephine.Mason@thomsonreuters.com; +44 207 542 7695; Reuters
Messaging: josephine.mason.reuters.com@reuters.net))