HARARE, Nov 11 — Moderna Inc has offered to sell its Covid-19 vaccines to the African Union at US$7 (RM29.2)a shot, head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control John Nkengasong said today, half the price paid by the United States earlier in the year.

It is also a substantial discount to what other buyers like the European Union have agreed this year, part of a broader trend for drugmakers to sell at lower prices to lower income countries.

"I am happy to say that a dose of the Moderna vaccine will be US$7. That is what is being offered to us,” Nkengasong told a weekly virtual media briefing.

Earlier this year, Moderna said its deals outside the United States had been struck at between US$22 and US$37 per dose. As those did not include a lower income country, this is the first insight into the kind of prices Moderna is prepared to charge poorer countries.

Nkengasong said there was no doubt that a fourth wave of the pandemic was coming to Africa, where only 6% of the eligible population has been fully vaccinated.

Africa has to date recorded 8.5 million cases and 220,000 deaths, said Nkengasong. — Reuters