The Serum Institute manufactured Oxford-AstraZeneca Covishield vaccine has been added to the exemption list for the passport by the eight European Union nations. This decision has been come out a day after India formally requested EU member states to include both domestic vaccines – Covaxin and Covishield into the green pass list.
On Wednesday, the centre said that if India-made vaccines would not get approval then it would force the government to implement mandatory quarantine rules for European Union citizens.
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According to the media agency, these eight nations are Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Spain and Switzerland. Candidates who have taken the jabs of Covishield would be now eligible to seek a green pass to visit the aforementioned nations.
People, across the globe, have been taking Covishield jabs and several countries have been now welcoming individuals who have been vaccinated and have a clinically certified certificate of Coronavirus vaccine.
It was a major setback to the people who have taken the jabs of the Covishield vaccine when the European Union did not approve the Indian manufactured version of AstraZeneca and Oxford University’s Covid vaccine. At that time, the EU drug regulator stated that the India-made Covishield may have developed differently from the original vaccine due to changes in manufacturing settings.
Only four vaccines – Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca’s Vaxzervia, and Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen, have received approval from the EU drug regulator.
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However, the EU has given the freedom to each European Union member to take a free call on issuing green passes to vaccinated travellers.
A top government source told a media organization, “Individual member states have the flexibility to accept vaccines that have been authorized at the national level or by the World Health Organization.”