Tomas Doherty
Almost 10 per cent of the Republic's total population have received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine, new figures show.
A total of 654,251 vaccines were administered up to March 18th – 478,725 first doses and 175,526-second doses.
Health officials are hopeful that the 30,000 people who missed the AstraZeneca vaccine last week will be covered over the next seven to ten days.
The use of AstraZeneca in the State was paused last Sunday following reports of unusual blood clots in Norway.
It resumed on Saturday after the jab got the green light from the European Medicines Agency and the National Immunisation Advisory Committee.
The pause saw the daily rate of vaccinations drop – only 303 Covid vaccines were administered last Sunday.
In the North, more than 662,000 people had received their first jab by March 20th, while just over 75,000 are fully vaccinated.
Vaccinations have now been extended to people aged 50 to 59 in Northern Ireland.
The update means that 9.6 per cent of the Republic's total population has received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, compared to 35 per cent in the North.
Global vaccine tracker
According to the latest available data on March 21st, Ireland has a vaccination rate slightly above the European average, with 13 doses administered per 100 people.
Malta, Hungary, Estonia and Denmark have the fastest rollouts in the EU.
The UK, Serbia, Turkey, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland have also administered more vaccines per head of population than Ireland.
In absolute numbers, Germany is the EU country with the most doses administered, with 10.5 million given out.
Globally, the United States has given the most doses overall, with more than 121 million, while China has administered 70 million.
Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Chile top the global list when the figures are broken down by population, with 112, 73 and 44 doses administered per 100 people respectively.
Meanwhile, EU financial services commissioner Maireád McGuinness has said EU leaders will consider whether to impose export bans on coronavirus vaccines to countries outside the bloc.
She told the BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday: “European citizens are growing angry and upset at the fact that the vaccine rollout has not happened as rapidly as we had anticipated.
“Both the EU and the UK have contracts with AstraZeneca and my understanding is the company is supplying the UK but not the European Union.
“We are supplying the UK with other vaccines, so I think this is just about openness and transparency.”
Ms McGuinness said the EU had been accused of “vaccine nationalism” but said its approach was internationalist, and cited EU exports of vaccines to 31 countries, including the UK.
