A day after controversy erupted, the United Kingdom, on Wednesday, 22 September, updated its travel guidelines to include Serum Institute of India (SII)- manufactured Covishield in its list of recognized vaccines.
“Formulations of the four listed vaccines, such as AstraZeneca Covishield, AstraZeneca Vaxzervria and Modern Takeda, qualify as approved vaccines,” the updated UK guidelines said.
However, India does not feature in a list of countries mentioned by the UK where vaccination from the relevant public health body would count as an individual being or getting vaccinated.
So, Indians travelling to Britain have to self-isolate and book and take Covid-19 tests before moving freely.
Last week, the UK announced new rules – which will come into effect on 4 October – which mandate that Travellers from several countries arriving in England do not have to self-isolate if they are fully vaccinated. India couldn’t get included in that list either.
Prominent Indians called the rule “highly discriminatory”, “racist”, and “asinine”, among other things.
Foreign Minister S Jaishankar had taken up the matter “strongly” with his UK counterpart Liz Truss, according to India’s foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla.
It is “a discriminatory policy and does impact our citizens travelling to the UK”, Mr Shringla told reporters. He had warned that India might take “reciprocal measures” if the UK did not address India’s concerns.
On Wednesday, the United Kingdom revised its travel advisory, accepting the Serum Institute of India’s (SII) Covishield as an ‘approved vaccine’. The decision comes in the aftermath of the massive uproar against the UK over its new travel regulations, which highlighted a clear ‘vaccine bias’ against several countries, including India.
In its updated advisory, the UK Government said, “From 4 AM Monday 4 October, you will qualify as fully vaccinated if you got vaccinated under an approved vaccination programme in UK, Europe, USA or UK vaccine programme overseas with a full course of Oxford/Astra Zeneca, Pfizer, BioNTech, Moderna or Janssen vaccine.”
The advisory mentioned that Covishield, a formulation of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, would now qualify as ‘approved vaccines’. “Formulations of the four listed vaccines such as — AstraZeneca Covishield, AstraZeneca Vaxzevria and Moderna Takeda qualify as approved vaccines,” it added.
However, the advisory has not mentioned India as a recognized public healthy body giving certification.
The list of recognized public health bodies includes countries such as – Australia, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Bahrain, Brunei, Canada, Dominica, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, Malaysia, New Zealand, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan.
The advisory means Indians will still have to undergo mandatory quarantine upon arrival, despite being fully vaccinated with Covishield.
The new guidelines declared by the Boris Johnson-led administration stated that ‘fully vaccinated’ people coming from India and few other countries will be considered ‘unvaccinated’ if they got administered the Covishield vaccine- a formulation of the UK-approved AstraZeneca vaccine.
The travel advisory stated that those vaccinated with Covishield would have to undergo mandatory self-isolation for ten days and take a pre-departure COVID-19 test, a day two and day 8 PCR test.
Given that Covishield doses got actively used during the vaccination drive in the UK, the new guidelines drew in severe backlash for being motivated not by science but implicit prejudice.
“The non-recognition of Covishield is a discriminatory policy & impacts our citizens travelling to the UK. The EAM has raised the issue strongly with the new UK foreign secretary. During a press conference, I am told certain assurances have been given that this issue will be resolved,”
