EU says exports of COVID-19 vaccines now top 1 billion mark

The European Union's top official said Monday that the bloc has now exported over 1 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines to the rest of the world. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the vaccines have been sent to over 150 nations, making the 27-member bloc the largest exporter of vaccines in the world. The EU has said that ramping up COVID-19 vaccinations around the world is the bloc's No. 1 priority right now and already last month made a commitment to send 200 million more vaccine doses to Africa and other low-income nations. Even when rich nations are already contemplating giving a third booster vaccine shot to large swaths of their populations, most of the world's poorer nations are still waiting to be fully vaccinated, laying bare an acute sense of vaccine inequality.

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