UK GIVES GREEN LIGHT TO COVISHIELD, PUTS IT IN THE ‘APPROVED’ LIST UNDER THE NEW TRAVEL ADVISORY

The United Kingdom introduced the revised travel advisory for the country on Wednesday in which Covishield has qualified as an approved vaccine for travel in the country. The Covid-19 vaccine has been developed jointly by Oxford University and AstraZeneca and is currently being manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII). Travellers with a full dosage of Covishield will now be allowed to visit Great Britain from any part of the world from October 4 onwards.

The list also approves leading vaccines for Covid-19 such as Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna from selected countries. Any traveller visiting the UK will be considered fully vaccinated if they have been injected with a full dose of the above-mentioned vaccines taken from recognised health bodies.

COVID19 | In its revised travel advisory, the UK government says Covishield qualifies as an approved vaccine pic.twitter.com/B5R52cDu6v

— ANI (@ANI) September 22, 2021

However, travellers from India who have been inoculated with a full dose of Covishield will still need to go through a quarantine period after stepping into the country. Officials say this is due to an issue over the ‘vaccine certification’ provided by the government of India. Readers to note that India has already been put on the ‘amber list’ according to the guidelines issued by the health advisory and government of the UK.

In the past, India had protested against the UK’s non-recognition of the Oxford-AstraZeneca formulated Covishield and had warned the country of ‘reciprocal measures’ if the discriminated policy was not amended. The government of the UK has passed a statement that says that the country has no problem with the formulation of the vaccine, but with vaccine certification provided by the Indian Government.