Statement by President von der Leyen on vaccine sharing in 2021 and targets for 2022

The European Union is the biggest donor of safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines so far.

As Team Europe we have exceeded our vaccine-sharing target in 2021.

We promised to share 250 million doses with low and middle income countries by the end of 2021. And in fact we shared 380 million doses, mostly through COVAX.

More than 255 million of these doses were already delivered to recipient countries.

And we will do more.

The Team Europe has promised to share 700 million doses by mid-2022. We are on track to fulfil this promise.

In particular, we will step up our efforts to support Africa where vaccination rates are lower than in other parts of the world.

Because we will only control this global pandemic if we fight it in every corner of the world.