Tomas Doherty
The State has administered just under 200,000 doses of the Covid vaccine, Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly confirmed on Monday.
The HSE confirmed a total of 199,800 vaccines have been given to date – 150,500 first doses and 49,300 second doses.
Last week a total of 50,900 doses were administered in the Republic.
Ireland has received delivery of 207,330 vaccines so far, HSE chief Paul Reid said on Twitter.
Meanwhile, the Stormont Health Minister said more than 246,000 doses of coronavirus vaccines have been administered in Northern Ireland.
Robin Swann told the Assembly that, as of Sunday, 246,421 doses had been administered, comprising 221,809 first doses and 24,612 second doses.
The update means that just over 3 per cent of the Republic's population have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, compared to almost 12 per cent in the North.
Mr Swann also commented on the European Commission's threat to bring in vaccine export controls, saying that it could have endangered supplies to Northern Ireland by enforcing Irish Sea trade disruption.
The AstraZeneca jab is manufactured in the UK but the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine comes from a plant in Belgium, and has in the past been routed to Belfast via Dublin.
The Commission was forced into an embarrassing U-turn on Friday when it backtracked on an attempt to restrict the free flow of vaccines across the Border.
Mr Swann said: “Vaccine is not something that should become political.”
The European Union, whose member states are far behind other rich nations in rolling out vaccines, is scrambling to get supplies for its 450 million people, just as the West's biggest pharmaceutical companies slow deliveries to the bloc due to production problems.
To add to the EU's problems, the European Centre for Disease Control has had issues with its published vaccine data, which incorrectly credited Ireland with administering twice as many Covid-19 vaccines as it actually has.
According to the ECDC’s vaccine tracker published on Monday, Ireland leads the way in the EU for vaccine distribution, with over 10 per cent of the population covered.
In fact, as of 4pm on Monday, Ireland has the third highest vaccination rate in the EU, behind Malta and Denmark.
In absolute numbers, Germany is the EU country that has administered the most doses, with 2.3 million given out.
Globally, the United States has given the most doses overall, with more than 31.1 million, while China has administered 22.8 million.
Israel, the United Arab Emirates and the UK top the global list when the figures are broken down by population, with 56, 35 and 15 doses administered per 100 people respectively.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen confirmed on Monday that Pfizer will deliver 75 million extra doses of their vaccine in the second quarter of the year, repeating information she gave earlier this month.
The additional doses are part of a deal the EU announced on January 8th, which would give the EU nearly half the firm's global output for 2021.
The Commission also said it would continue discussions with AstraZeneca with the purpose of receiving more doses of its vaccine than the company has so far pledged.
On Sunday, Ms von der Leyen said AstraZeneca had raised its target of supplies to the EU to 40 million doses from 31 million until the end of March, after a large cut last week.
Its original commitment was of at least 80 million doses, and possibly up to 120 million in the first quarter.
