Germany, Spain among EU nations to accept Covishield amid travel row: Report

A number of European Union member states have cleared the AstraZeneca Covishield vaccine – manufactured by the Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII) – for their travel pass, ANI reported quoting sources on Thursday. Those countries are Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Estonia and Spain. 

Meanwhile, Switzerland has also said it will allow the Covishield vaccine for Schengen state.

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This comes after the EU said it will recognise only those vaccines approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for their intra-bloc travel pass, which comes into effect from today. 

The EMA has cleared only four vaccines – Pfizer/BioNTech’s Comirnaty, AstraZeneca-Oxford’s Vaxzervria, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson’s Jannsen.

The Covishield vaccine, mostly used in India and other  has also been jointly developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford but varies from the version distributed in Europe. 

On Wednesday, New Delhi asked each memeber state of the 27-member bloc to individually consider allowing Indians who have been administered either the Covishield or Covaxin shots and want to travel to Europe, PTI reported. 

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar also took up the matter with Josep Borrell Fontelles, the High Representative of the European Union, on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Italy on Tuesday. 

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An EU official had earlier said that each member state will be authorised to accept vaccines authorised by the WHO – Covishield, Corona Vac and Sinopharm – for the digital pass. 

The digital ‘Green Pass’ is mandatory for travellers in EU countries with the certificate serving as proof that a person has been inoculated against COVID-19. 

On Monday, SII chief executive Adar Poonawalla had tweeted, “I realise that a lot of Indians who have taken Covishield are facing issues with travel to the EU, I assure everyone, I have taken this up at the highest levels and hope to resolve this matter soon, both with regulators and at a diplomatic level with countries.”