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EU Commission chief von der Leyen: "As much exported as provided for the citizens of the EU"
Photo: FREDERICK FLORIN / AFP
The European Union has exported more than a billion corona vaccine doses to other countries around the world within ten months.
Commission head Ursula von der Leyen called this "an important milestone reached".
The vaccine has been delivered to more than 150 countries since December 2020 - including Japan, Turkey, Great Britain and Brazil.
About 87 million cans were sent to low- and middle-income countries through the UN Covax initiative.
"We exported just as much as we made available for the citizens of the EU," emphasized von der Leyen.
It also met criticism that the EU was keeping most of the vaccine to itself.
The World Health Organization recently had to admit that it will probably miss its international vaccination target.
In view of the initially scarce vaccine and sometimes failed deliveries, the EU introduced export controls for corona vaccines at the beginning of February 2021 and tightened them in March.
In certain cases, export can be prohibited.
However, this almost never happened.
Von der Leyen has now confirmed that the EU will donate at least 500 million vaccine doses to particularly vulnerable countries in the coming months.
"But other countries are also challenged."
The acceleration of global vaccinations is considered essential in the fight against the pandemic.
Without global vaccinations, there is a risk that the virus will continue to mutate - and ultimately form mutants that are immune to the previous vaccines.
Meanwhile, a message from the Franco-Austrian group Valneva made hope for additional vaccination doses.
According to his own statements, he announced "positive first" results from the clinical phase 3 study for his vaccine candidate against the coronavirus.
Compared to the AstraZeneca vaccine, the test subjects had a higher mean value of neutralizing antibodies, the company said.
The agent is also "generally well tolerated".
According to the information, 4012 people aged 18 and over in the UK had participated in the study.
ssu / dpa-AFX
