By Ross Kerber

BOSTON (Reuters] – At the annual meeting, the head of World Health Organization will present a shareholder resolution Moderna (NASDAQ:) Inc Thursday was a rare opportunity for investor advocacy from the United Nations agency.

The virtual Cambridge meeting will be held in Mass. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director General will appeal to shareholders to vote in favor of the company’s study on transferring knowledge that can facilitate production COVID-19 vaccinations in low and middle income countries to fight the pandemic.

Peter Singer, Tedros’ special advisor in Geneva, Switzerland said that it was the first such move by the agency at the meeting with a publicly traded firm.

Singer stated that it was an unusual appearance for an unpredicted pandemic in a phone interview on Wednesday night. The most important thing to WHO is the saving of lives.

It is part of an ongoing discussion about how to increase COVID-19 production in developing nations, where vaccine rates are still far below those in richer countries.

Moderna has asked investors not to vote for the proposal. According to the proxy statement, it said it wanted a report “on a solution that does not address the reality of the pandemic today”.

Colleen Hussey, spokesperson for Moderna, stated that the company had already increased its production capacity through partnerships and that countries that are less fortunate have dropped millions of doses Moderna was ready to supply.

According to the company, there are problems with refrigeration and vaccine resistance.

Hussey stated that Moderna was dedicated to solving long-term issues that cause vaccine inequality.

This proposal is just one of the three that Oxfam America sponsored. It has similar proposals due to be submitted on Thursday. Pfizer Inc (NYSE:) and at Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:). Institutional Shareholder Services, a top proxy advisor, has advised investors to vote for the resolutions.

In support for the Moderna resolution, ISS said in a recently published report that shareholders would be able to see how the company manages related risks.