After receiving a severe backlash from the Indian diaspora, the UK on Wednesday revised its travel guidelines including Covishield in the list of accepted vaccines, however, Indians who are fully vaccinated will have to quarantine and get tested for Covid-19 on arrival in Britain as their government still does not accept Cowin certificate.
The UK officials said that Covishield is not a problem but they doubt the vaccine certification allotted in India, "vaccination certification issues".
Both nations are in talks to resolve this matter.
Responding to the deadlock, the top health officials in India said that there were “no issues” with the Indian vaccine certificate.
Earlier, the Serum Institute of India’s Adar Poonawalla had suggested harmonising the certification. “Leaders need to address the issue of harmonising vaccine certification as a priority," Poonawalla had said to CNBC-TV18.
The freshly update UK travel rules say,
"Formulations of the four listed vaccines, such as AstraZeneca Covishield, AstraZeneca Vaxzevria and Modern Takeda, qualify as approved vaccines."
It further says that from 4 am, October 4, those administered with vaccines from a "relevant public health body" in specific countries will be considered "fully vaccinated".
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This list doesn't involve India. Meaning those Indians who have got the two doses of Covishield, developed by the Serum Institute of India (SII), will still have to quarantine, although India is now on the Amber book.
A British High Commission's statement on Tuesday stated: "We are engaging with the Government of India to explore how we could expand UK recognition of vaccine certification to people vaccinated by a relevant public health body in India."
People after getting vaccinated with Covid jabs in India receive certification from a centralised national system that is operated through the CoWin app and portal.
Meanwhile, RS Sharma, the CEO of the National Health Authority, had said there were "no issues" on CoWin with Covid certification.
"The system is entirely WHO (World Health Organisation) compliant. We continue to have discussions with the International Civil Aviation Organisation as well. The UK High Commissioner visited me on September 2. They wanted to understand the CoWin system, the technical aspects. A resource has been allocated to them for this purpose and two further conversations have happened with their team. These were technical-level conversations," said Dr Sharma.
Expressing delight at Covishield being recognised, Adar Poonawalla noted that the hurdle for Indians travelling to the UK isn't yet fixed.
"We are delighted that Covishield is recognised as a vaccine equivalent to AstraZeneca on the official gov.uk website. However, the matter for travel and quarantine is not resolved and all those looking to travel to the UK should carefully follow official entry guidelines,'' Mr Poonawalla in an interview had told news agency NDTV.
India had cautioned the UK of "reciprocal measures" if Covishield, a version of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine produced in India, was not recognised. Several leaders had also slammed the UK earlier travel rules, which said double vaccinated Indians are not recognised as "full vaccinated" and will have to undergo 10 days quarantine on arriving in Britain while it did not apply to people from other countries. Many called the rules to be "offensive", " racist" and "biased".
It is to be noted that Britons vaccinated in the United Kingdom with the same vaccine shot are required to quarantine.
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The non-recognition of Covishield is a discriminatory policy and affects Indian nationals travelling to the UK, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said on Tuesday.
"The External Affairs Minister has raised the issue strongly with the new UK foreign secretary. I am told that certain assurances have been given that this issue will be resolved," Shringla added.
The traffic light model of red, amber and green is being used by the UK to list nations to permit foreign visitors which is going to change from October 4. Here, the amber and green list will be incorporated as one centralised list while the ‘red list’ remains separate and continues to be maintained.