A day after India formally requested that European Union member states include both COVISHIELD and COVAXIN in their passport exemption list, Switzerland and seven EU countries have added the Oxford-Astrazeneca vaccine developed by the Serum Institute. The seven EU member countries that adopted COVISHIELD vaccination on Thursday were Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, and Spain.
Indian authorities had urged member nations to accept vaccination certificates given via the CoWIN site, claiming that ‘the veracity of such vaccination certification can be validated through CoWIN.’ The European Medicines Agency has approved only four vaccines: Pfizer/Comirnaty, BioNTech’s Moderna, AstraZeneca-Vaxzervria, Oxford’s and Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen (EMA).
‘Individual member states have the flexibility to also accept vaccines that have been authorised at the national level or by the World Health Organization,’ top government sources revealed. Furthermore, Ugo Astuto, the European Union’s Ambassador to India and Bhutan, said on Monday that the EU Digital COVID Certificate is intended to allow safe free movement within the EU during the pandemic, but it is not a must for travel.
‘It will serve as proof that a person was vaccinated against COVID-19, received a negative test result or recovered from COVID-19. The aim of the EU Digital COVID Certificate is to facilitate free movement inside the EU. It is not a pre-condition to travel,’ he told
Post Your Comments