The EU will have enough Covid-19 vaccine doses to cover 70 per cent of its adult population by mid-July due to higher production within the bloc, a senior official has said.

“Fifty-three factories are producing vaccines in the EU. Our continent is now the largest producer in the world after the United States,” internal markets commissioner Thierry Breton told French daily Le Figaro in an interview.

“I am now certain of how many doses are currently in production and I know how many millions will be delivered each week,” he said.

“This allows me to assure you that we well have by mid-July the number of doses necessary for vaccinating 70pc of the European Union's adult population,” he said, citing the threshold many health experts say is necessary to achieve “herd immunity”.