An online monitoring system published on 1 February by the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), based on the updated information given to that European agency by countries, which reveals that up to 1 February 8,230,414 vaccines have been administered against covid-19 in the EU and the European Economic Area.

With regard to Portugal, the country has one of the lowest percentages in relation to the administration of the first dose and stands at 1.6 percent, with only the Netherlands (1.5 percent), Latvia (1.1 percent), Cyprus (0.9 percent) and Slovakia (0.5 percent) coming in lower. Regarding Denmark, no percentage is shown.

According to ECDC data, Portugal has already received 338,290 doses of vaccines against covid-19, having administered 166,658 for the first dosage, this again based on the information provided to the European agency (countries are only required to notify the structure to every 15 days).

In information published a week ago by the Directorate-General for Health on social media, it was indicated that, up to that date, 249,891 vaccines had been administered in Portugal, a number that would include the first and second doses.

In the data published by ECDC, leading the list of most advanced countries in the first dose of vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 is Ireland (11.5 percent), Iceland (3.8 percent), Malta (3.7 percent), Finland (3.1 percent), Slovenia (3 percent) and Poland (3 percent).

At the moment, Pfizer-BioNtech vaccines, which have been in use since December, and Moderna, in use since the middle of January in the community space, both based on messenger RNA technology, are being administered in the EU.

At the end of last week, the European regulator gave 'green light' to the vaccine developed by the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca with the University of Oxford, which is surrounded by controversy due to supply problems.

In Portugal, there have also been controversies about vaccination outside the priority groups.