"We are excited to sign this new agreement with Moderna, which gives Covax participants access to another highly effective vaccine," said Seth Berkley.
The 
Covax program, which favors the equitable distribution of 
vaccines, signed an agreement with Moderna to acquire 500 million doses of its anticovid 
vaccine, the 
Vaccine Alliance (Gavi) announced on Monday.
"We are very pleased to sign this new agreement with Moderna, which gives 
Covax participants access to another highly effective 
vaccine," said Seth Berkley, Gavi's CEO, in a statement.
The first doses of this messenger RNA 
vaccine should be delivered in the fourth quarter of 2021, "with a total of 34 million available" this year and "up to 466 million doses in 2022, the note said.
The Moderna 
vaccine is generally given in two doses, although the new recommendations call for a single dose if the patient has recently had 
COVID.
The agreement also contains "options that eventually make it possible to obtain 
vaccine doses adapted to future variants," the Geneva-based organization said.
"Expanding and diversifying the portfolio has always been a key goal for 
Covax, and to remain flexible in the face of this ever-evolving pandemic - including the growing threat of new variants," Berkley said. This agreement with Moderna "is one more step in this direction," he said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday granted its emergency homologation to Moderna's 
vaccine, a prerequisite for it to be integrated into the 
Covax system, which it established together with Gavi, and Cepi (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations).
The agreement is "an important step in our efforts to ensure that populations around the world have access to our 
COVID-19 
vaccine," said Moderna chief Stéphane Bancel, acknowledging that "many countries have limited resources to access to 
vaccines".
In addition to Moderna, the WHO has already licensed the 
vaccine from 
Pfizer-
BioNTech, the two 
AstraZeneca sera manufactured in India and South Korea, and the one from 
Johnson & 
Johnson.
So far, 
Covax, whose main supplier remains 
AstraZeneca, has distributed more than 49 million 
vaccines in 121 countries and territories.
The 
vaccine developed by Moderna, a pioneering startup in anticovid 
vaccines, has characteristics similar to that developed by 
Pfizer-
BioNTech, with 94.1% efficacy.