STOCKHOLM, April 1 (Xinhua) – The European Union has not reached its double goal of vaccinating 80% of healthcare workers and 80% of those aged 80 or over by COVID-19 by the end of March.
Statistics published by the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) on Wednesday show that no EU country achieved the goals for both target groups.
Only five countries in the European Union and the European Economic Area (EEA) – the EU countries plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway – have administered at least the first vaccine dose to at least 80% of those aged 80 and over.
“Monitoring of COVID-19 vaccine development in the EU / EEA shows that the level of vaccine uptake is increasing, but still at a pace that makes EU targets challenging in most countries,” the ECDC concluded in a technical report released on Monday.
Iceland was most successful with a share of 98 percent when it comes to vaccinating healthcare professionals. It also completely vaccinated 88.5 percent of its elderly. Ireland and Malta have administered the first dose to 90 percent, while Sweden and Finland have started vaccinating more than 85 percent of the oldest.
Three countries – Denmark, Norway and Portugal – were almost 80 percent.
At the same time, half of the EU / EEA countries have not yet vaccinated 60 percent of the elderly. One of these is Bulgaria, with 5.1 percent of those over 80 vaccinated. There is also no data available for several countries, including Germany and the Netherlands.
According to the ECDC’s technical report, there are several reasons behind the missed deadline. Among these, most countries reported challenges related to the delivery and delivery of COVID-19 vaccines.
Six countries reported staff shortages and a further six countries reported communication challenges due to misinformation and misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, which may affect vaccine acceptance. These countries are Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Germany, Romania and Sweden.
Statistics on vaccination intake among healthcare professionals show a similar picture. Only four countries achieved the goal set by the European Commission.
Estonia and Hungary reported that they had vaccinated 100 percent of healthcare workers with the first dose, while Romania and Spain were both over 90 percent. Hungary also reported a 99.6 percent intake of full vaccination among healthcare professionals, while Romania was just under 80 percent.
The statistics also show that 86,000,000 doses were distributed to the EU / EEA countries on Wednesday, of which 71,200,000 were administered.
In addition to the 80% target for target groups, the European Commission also set another target in January for Member States to vaccinate at least 70% of all adults by the summer.
Source: sn.dk