Two major buyers of COVID-19 vaccines have declined options to purchase hundreds of millions of additional doses from Moderna, a sign of waning demand as the pandemic eases.
The African Union and the WHO-backed Covax group have decided not to obtain more of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine as many nations struggle to turn supplies into inoculations. Countries left behind in the global rollout are now grappling with a lack of funds, hesitancy, supply-chain obstacles and other factors that are hampering distribution.
“The vaccine landscape has changed drastically in recent months,” said Safura Abdool Karim, a public-health lawyer and researcher in Johannesburg. “We went from really needing vaccines super urgently to now having them.”