UK govt as issued new travel policy for entrant into their territory, which will be effective from 4th October 2021. In this policy, any Indian entering UK will be treated as unvaccinated and he/she will have to go in quarantine and will be tested for Covid 19 and after getting the negative report then only will be allowed to enter.
India’s Covishield vaccine, which is developed by a UK company AstraZeneca, and is being manufactured by Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII), is not recognised by the UK under new rules despite being identical doses given to millions of British people. Indis has already exported 5 million doses of Covidshield to the UK. Therefore, the non-recognition of Covishield is a discriminatory policy and impacts thousands of Indian citizens traveling to the UK.
In this proposed new system for international travel, the UK govt is removing the home isolation requirement for vaccinated individuals from certain countries. This benefit has been extended to an extra 17 countries, including those in Asia and the Caribbean. India, however, has not been included in the list, and passengers from here(even those with 2 doses of Covishield) would have to self-isolate for 10 days upon arrival in the UK.
India has recognised four Covid vaccines but mostly used only the AstraZeneca licensed Covishiels and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin in its immunisation drive. While Covishield is recognised by World Health Organisation, Covaxin’s approval is pending. Over 80% of Indians have been vaccinated by Covishield.
According to the current UK norms, the UK accepts visa applications for all categories in India and does not require vaccination for entry. Passengers, however, are required to take pre- departure Covid-19 test and tests on second and eight-day upon arrival, apart from self-isolation Passengers can also shorten their home quarantine to around five days under its ‘test to release’ scheme. India on its part does not insist on vaccination and has done away with institutional quarantine for foreigners entering India. A pre-arrival RT-PCR is required for all, and a post-arrival test is required for passengers from certain countries.
SII had already applied to European Medicines Agency (EMA) through British Drug major AstraZeneca to include its manufacturing sites as authorised for making Vaxzevria Covid 19 vaccine. This was done a few months back. SII has also submitted data to show that Covishield and Vaxzevria are identical. But to date, SII’s Indian sites are yet to be included as authorised sites of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Indian Foreign Secretary yesterday gave the statement “The basic issue here is a vaccine Covishield, which is licensed product of UK company, manufactured in India of which we have supplied five million doses to the UK….therefore non-recognition of Covishield is a discriminatory policy and does impact those of our citizens traveling to the UK. We have also offered to some of our partner countries the option of mutual recognition of vaccination certificates….But if we do not get satisfaction we would be within our rights to im[ose reciprocal measures.” he further added that the EU medical body, EAM, has the issue strongly with the new UK foreign secretary. Even External Affairs minister S Jaishankar had also discussed this issue with UK counterpart Liz Truss in New York, where both are attending the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
As per media sources, India will definitely take reciprocal action against travelers from the UK if its concerns are not addressed by 4th October when the new British rules will come into effect.
In my opinion, this issue has snowballed just because of high headedness of UK health authorities. It seems while formulating these new rules they had forgotten that 5 million of their own citizens have been inoculated by the Covishield vaccine, which India has supplied. How cone at that the Covidshield was approved and today it is unapproved. I feel the British have been threatened by India in the vaccine sector, as British companies were expecting that India will import millions of vaccine doses from them, but on the contrary, the reverse happened, when India started exported the vaccine to so many countries of the third world at a cheaper rate, and the British companies lost that pie also. Some of the British people still living in the colonial past and think they can lord over Indians.
My feeling is that the UK govt will have to withdraw their new travel policy for fully vaccinated Indian citizens, who are traveling to the UK.
Let us wait for the next development on the subject.
Waiting for your views on this blog.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
22nd September 2021.
Tejinder Singh Sethi
The protocol is racist — and the Indian government should impose the “reciprocity principle” against British travellers to India.