EU has shipped tiny percentage of planned COVID-19 shot donations - document

FILE PHOTO: Ethiopian Airlines staff unload AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccines under the COVAX scheme against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) from a cargo plane at Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, March 7, 2021. REUTERS/Tiksa Negeri/File Photo

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - EU countries have so far donated just a tiny portion of excess COVID-19 vaccines to poor nations, mostly AstraZeneca shots, less than 3% of the 160 million doses they plan to give away in total to help tame the global pandemic, an EU document shows.

The European Union has committed to helping inoculate the most vulnerable across the world but, like other wealthy countries, EU states have so far focused on buying shots to inoculate their own citizens, contributing to a shortage of vaccines elsewhere.