British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday said he saw no reason why people who received Indian-made AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines should be left out of vaccine passport schemes after the European Union did not initially recognise it.
About 5 million people in Britain are thought to have had the vaccine made by Serum Institute in India, known as Covishield.
“I see no reason at all why the MHRA-approved vaccines should not be recognised as part of the vaccine passports and I’m very confident that that will not prove to be a problem,” Johnson said at a joint news conference with Angela Merkel, referring to Britain’s medicines regulator.
The European Commission on Friday said it was looking for a “coordinated approach” for the best possible way to accept the Indian version of AstraZeneca’s shot, Covishield.
The EU had earlier recognised the AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.
Boris Johnson’s spokesperson had said that all AstraZeneca vaccines given in the UK are the same product and it will work with the European Commission on mutual recognition of certification.
India’s foreign minister Subrahmanyan Jaishankar had earlier said that he had taken up the authorisation of the Covishiled vaccine during his meeting with EU representatives on the sidelines of the G20 foreign ministers meeting in Italy.
