Boris Johnson has said he’s “very confident” there “will not convince be a problem” for travellers who have received an Indian-made Covid jab.
It comes after reports the ecu Union’s passport scheme doesn’t recognise the AstraZeneca vaccine made by the Serum Institute of India.
The UK’s medicines regulator has shared its data on the jab with its European counterpart, Downing Street said.
Vaccine expert Prof Adam Finn said the vaccines were “exactly an equivalent stuff”.
The Daily Telegraph had reported that many people that have received doses from batches manufactured in India could face being blocked from taking European holidays.
The UK has received five million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from the Serum Institute, which manufactures the jab under the name Covishield – although that name isn’t utilized in the united kingdom .
The Serum Institute has not received approval to form the Covid jab from the ecu drugs regulator but has been cleared by the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products regulatory authority (MHRA).
However, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said all AstraZeneca vaccines administered within the UK would seem under the name Vaxzevria – an equivalent because the AstraZeneca jab produced elsewhere – on the NHS Covid Pass.
It said “no Covishield jabs are administered within the UK”.
On Friday the united kingdom recorded 27,125 new cases of coronavirus and an extra 27 deaths within 28 days of a positive test.
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Currently the EU is rolling out a Digital Covid Certificate so travellers can prove their vaccination status so as to be exempt from quarantining when crossing a world border.
A European Commission spokesman said that while entry to the EU should be allowed to those that are fully vaccinated with EU authorised jabs, member states could make their own decision on whether to permit entry for people vaccinated with jabs on the planet Health Organization’s emergency list – which incorporates Covishield.
Several European countries have already approved the Covishield jab for travel. These include Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Greece, the Republic of eire , Spain, Iceland and Switzerland.
At the instant the EU doesn’t accept the UK’s NHS app for Covid certification but a UK government spokesman said it’ll be “a key service” as international travel is reopened.
Individual countries including Greece and Spain do accept it.
With batch numbers being visible via the UK’s Covid pass it’s not clear if officials EU countries could check if an individual had received a dose originating in India.
Earlier, Downing Street said the MHRA had shared its assessment of the vaccines with its European counterpart – the ecu Medicines Agency (EMA) – to help the approvals process.
During a news conference with German Chancellor Angel Merkel, the united kingdom prime minister, Mr Johnson, said he saw “no reason at all” why MHRA-approved vaccines shouldn’t be used for vaccine passports.
Mrs Merkel said that “in the foreseeable future” those with double jabs in high incidence areas, like Britain, “will be ready to travel again without having to travel into quarantine”.
The Serum Institute is reportedly seeking emergency authorisation from Europe for the Covishield jab, which has widely been distributed in poorer countries as a part of the Covavax scheme.
AstraZeneca also says it’s working with the EMA on the “inclusion of Covishield as a recognised vaccine for immunisation passports” – although the EMA says there’s currently no application for market authorisation.
Prof Finn, a member of the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme people shouldn’t be worried that they were any less protected by the Covishield jab and said the “administrative hurdle” should be “straightened out”.
“We’re within the youth of this new world of needed vaccine passports and there are many aspects of this that are still being sorted out for the primary time,” he said.
“But it’s clearly, ultimately not in anyone’s interest, including the ecu Union, to make hurdles that do not got to be there.”