Moderna said on Thursday it had paused its plans to build a vaccine manufacturing facility in Kenya, following a post-pandemic decline in demand for Covid-19 vaccines.

The company had said in 2022 that it would invest about $500 million in the Kenyan facility and supply as many as 500 million doses of its mRNA vaccines to the continent each year.

However, over the past two years, scientists and doctors have questioned the efficacy of the vaccines, leading to a decline in demand and orders worldwide. Africa had been earmarked as key market for the vaccine that is now a subject of investigation by the US Congress.

It also had plans to start filling doses of its Covid vaccine in Africa as early as 2023.

However, demand for Covid vaccines has since then waned following the end of the pandemic and Moderna has not received any vaccine orders for Africa since 2022, the company said.

The drugmaker said it had taken more than $1 billion in losses and write-downs related to the cancellation of previous orders from Africa.

• A Tell / Reuters report