Half of the world's population is currently fully vaccinated against COVID-19, but further actions to support the progress made in the global vaccination campaign are still needed, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Stella Kyriakides said on Wednesday.
"We are now at the stage where 50 per cent of the world's population has been fully vaccinated. And Europe has helped with over 1.7 billion doses, I think, exported to 165 different countries. But, I've said it before and I've said it in my opening remarks today, that delivering vaccines is not enough, we need to ensure that we are actually having vaccinations," she said at the Global Health Ministerial Conference in France, which was broadcast by EU services.
Kyriakides noted that it is exactly what the European Commission is working on.
"We are now preparing a vaccine support package, especially for Africa, where the vaccination rate is still very low," she stressed.
In addition, Kyriakides noted that the European Commission has been working very closely with EU member states, manufacturers and the COVAX initiative to ensure that COVID-19 vaccines can be distributed predictably when emergencies occur.
In November 2021, Kyriakides said that about half of COVID-19 vaccines produced in the European Union were exported. In December 2021, the European Union set a new goal of having 70 percent of the world's population fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by mid-2022.
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