The European Union has greenlighted 779 requests to deliver 148 million doses of coronavirus vaccines to 44 destinations outside the bloc and rejected only one since late January, the European Commission's spokesperson said in a statement to Sputnik on Thursday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th April, 2021) The European Union has greenlighted 779 requests to deliver 148 million doses of coronavirus vaccines to 44 destinations outside the bloc and rejected only one since late January, the European Commission's spokesperson said in a statement to Sputnik on Thursday.
"During the period from 30 January to 27 April 2021, the Member States approved 779 requests for export authorisations and rejected one request. The total doses authorised for export under the mechanism amount to 148 million to 44 different export destinations," the spokesperson said.
Most vaccine doses more than 52 million were sent to Japan. The top 10 also include the United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Switzerland, Colombia, Singapore and South Korea.
The EU has recently been subject to harsh criticism over its tough rules for vaccine exports in light of supply shortages. Tensions intensified last month when Italy, in coordination with Brussels, blocked a shipment of 250,000 coronavirus shots bound for Australia the only time when the EU has blocked a vaccine shipment to a third country, according to Brussels.
In March, The New York Times newspaper revealed, citing internal documents, that the EU had delivered millions of COVID-19 shots to third countries despite the internal supply crisis, proving accusations of "vaccine nationalism" wrong.
