UK recognises Covishield amid 'vaccine racism' row, Indian travellers still to quarantine

In a big development, the United Kingdom revised its travel advisory on Wednesday 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 are vaccinated under an approved vaccination programme in hr 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 which was a formulation of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine would now qualify as one of the 'approved vaccines'. "Formulations of the 4 listed vaccines such as -- AstraZeneca Covishield, AstraZeneca Vaxzevria and Moderna Takeda qualify as approved vaccines," it added.

Indians will still have to quarantine 

However, the advisory has not mentioned India as a country with a recognised public healthy body giving certification. The list of recognized public health bodies include 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. This means that Indians will still have to undergo mandatory quarantine upon their arrival, despite being fully vaccinated with Covishield.

“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,” a British high commission spokesperson said yesterday. 

UK vaccine policy discrimination 

The new guidelines declared by the Boris Johnson-led administration had declared that 'fully vaccinated' people coming from India and few other countries will be considered 'unvaccinated' if they were administered the Covishield vaccine- a formulation of the UK-approved AstraZeneca vaccine. The travel advisory stated that those vaccinated with Covishield will have to undergo mandatory self-isolation for ten days and also take a pre-departure COVID-19 test, a day 2 and day 8 PCR test. Given that Covishield doses were actively used during the vaccination drive in the UK, the new guidelines drew in severe backlash for being motivated not by science but unstated prejudice.

The non-recognition of Covishield was taken up strongly by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar, during his meeting with UK's new foreign secretary, raised the discriminating policy and its impact on the citizens travelling to the United Kingdom. India also asserted that it would have to undertake 'reciprocal measures' if the issue was not resolved.

"The non-recognition of Covishield is a discriminating policy & impacts our citizens travelling to the UK. The EAM 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," Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said during a press conference.