223.8 million people residing in the European Union have received at least two doses of the vaccine, one dose after recovery from Covid-19 or a single dose vaccine, which represents more than half of the population of the EU, according to a count made by AFP.

Half of the population of the European Union is now fully vaccinated against Covid-19, according to a count made from official sources, Tuesday at 11 a.m.

In total, this represents 223.8 million people who received two doses, a single dose after recovery, or a single dose vaccine.

Out of the 27 Member States, 13 have passed the 50% barrier of fully vaccinated, like the four most populous countries in the bloc: Spain (58%), Italy (54%), France (53%) and Germany (52%).

The most vaccinated countries in the EU are Malta (74%), Belgium (59%) and Spain (58%).

The least vaccinated are, by far, Bulgaria (14%) and Romania (25%).

Almost 60% of the EU population (59.5%) received at least one dose of the vaccine, i.e. 265.9 million people.

A higher rate than in the United States

The European Union, which continues to vaccinate at a sustained rate, now overtakes the United States: on August 1, Americans had fully vaccinated 49.7% of their population (against 49.8% for the EU) and counted 57.8% first-time vaccinated (against 59.3% for the EU).

Each day of the past week, the EU has administered doses to 0.6% of its population, a rate that is decreasing but remains three times higher than in the United States (0.2%).

To date, four vaccines have been approved in the European Union, those developed by Pfizer / BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca / Oxford and Johnson & Johnson.

In addition to these vaccines, Hungary and Slovakia also use vaccines not approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), developed in Russia or China.