By Francesco Guarascio
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – More than 1 billion doses of vaccines against Covid-19 produced in the European Union have been exported since December 2020, making the bloc the biggest exporter of immunizations, said the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, this Monday.
The vaccines went to more than 150 countries, and the EU exported as many doses as it distributed to its citizens, Von der Leyen added in a statement.
The bloc began exporting vaccines at the beginning of global distribution, a time when other major producers, such as the United States, were bolstering their own supplies and restricting exports.
Most of the EU’s exports go to large economies such as Japan, Turkey and the UK, which had contracts with vaccine manufacturers based in the bloc.
So far, sales and donations to poorer nations have represented a small proportion of total exports, but the bloc plans to distribute at least 500 million doses to the most vulnerable countries in the coming months, said the EU chief executive.
Half of those doses would result from a new contract the EU wants to sign with a maker of messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines, officials said. The other half will come from donations from EU countries that have already purchased vaccines.
The bloc has already signed supply contracts with mRNA vaccine manufacturers Pfizer-BioNTech to receive a total of up to 2.4 billion doses by 2023 and with Moderna to receive up to 460 million doses.
The EU created a vaccine export control mechanism in late January to monitor the withdrawal of doses from the bloc.
Although the mechanism allows the EU to bar exports if domestic supplies are lacking, it has only happened once to stop the shipment of 250,000 vaccines from AstraZeneca to Australia in March, at the height of a dispute with the Anglo-Swedish company over the supply of doses. for the EU.
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