European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in an official statement that the European Union is the largest donor of effective and safe vaccines to date. Speaking about the number of vaccines that have been distributed in 2021, the president revealed that the target for sharing vaccines for the previous year has been exceeded.
The EU has promised to donate 250 million doses of vaccine to low- and middle-income countries. However, they were able to distribute 130 million more doses, mostly through the COVAX program, increasing the number of donated doses to 380 million.
"We have promised to share 250 million doses with low- and middle-income countries by the end of 2021. And, in fact, we have distributed 380 million doses, mostly through COVAX. More than 255 million of these doses have already been delivered to recipient countries. And we will deliver more! ” is shown in von der Leyen's statement.
For this year, Ursula von der Leyen said the target will be 700 million doses by mid-2022. She stressed that they will focus on distributing more doses of vaccine to Africa because vaccination rates on the territory of the latter are smaller than in other parts of the world.
Regarding vaccination in the EU, data from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) show that as of January 7, a total of 755.491.855 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered, including booster vaccines.
This means that 84,2% of the EU adult population received at least one dose, 80,0% were fully vaccinated and another 35,8% received an additional dose of vaccine.