Coronavirus: EU passes vaccine milestone of 150M shots

By Agnes Szucs

BRUSSELS (AA) – Over 150 million COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in the European Union, the president of the European Commission announced Tuesday.

“Vaccination is gaining speed across the EU: we have just passed 150 million vaccinations,” Ursula von der Leyen wrote on Twitter.

She also explained that a quarter of the bloc’s population of 450 million had already received their first shot.

“We'll have enough doses for vaccinating 70% of EU adults in July,” von der Leyen added, moving ahead the European Commission’s previous estimate it could achieve herd immunity by the end of September.

The data also shows that the bloc managed to accelerate vaccination campaigns despite initial setbacks due to delays in vaccine shipments.

The EU signed advanced purchase agreements with six vaccine producers – Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca, CureVac, Johnson & Johnson, and Sanofi/GlaxoSmithKline – to buy about 2.6 billion vaccine doses.

In March, the European Commission started negotiations with pharma firm Pfizer/BioNTech to purchase another 1.8 billion doses for 2022 and 2023.