COVID-19: 50% of world's population has been fully vaccinated, says European Commission

Despite the fact that half of the world's population has been completely vaccinated against COVID-19, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Stella Kyriakides stated on Wednesday that further efforts are needed to assist the global immunisation campaign's success. During the Global Health Ministerial Conference in France, Kyriakides informed, “We are now at the stage where 50% of the world's population has been fully vaccinated,” Sputnik reported. 

In the conference, Kyriakides mentioned that Europe has aided with more than 1.7 billion doses sent to 165 nations. However, she continued, “I have said it before and I have said it in my opening remarks today, that delivering vaccines is not enough, we need to ensure that we are actually having vaccinations.".  

According to Kyriakides, the European Commission is working on a COVID vaccination assistance package, particularly for Africa, where immunisation rates are still quite low.  

WHO Chief expressed concern over COVID-19 vaccination disparities

Earlier in the month of December 2021, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), had expressed "great worry" over COVID vaccination disparities, particularly in African countries. During his speech to the International Conference on Public Health in Africa, the WHO chief had emphasised how vaccine injustice has harmed South Africa and other African countries, noting that only 8% of the African population had received both doses of the coronavirus vaccine at that time. On December 16, he had stated that 44% of the world's population had received both vaccination doses. 

In addition to this, Kyriakides highlighted that the European Commission has been working closely with the EU member states, producers, and the COVAX project to guarantee that COVID-19 vaccinations can be supplied predictably in the event of an emergency. 

Last year in November, the European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Stella had stated that roughly half of the COVID-19 vaccinations manufactured in the EU were exported. Further, the EU announced a new aim in December 2021 that by mid-2022, 70% of the world's population will be completely vaccinated against COVID-19.   

Meanwhile, in the week of January 31 to February 6, the total number of additional COVID-19 instances fell by 17% globally compared to the previous week, but the number of new fatalities rose by 7%. Globally, about 392 million cases have been reported and 5.7 million fatalities have been registered as of February 6. 

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