UK Says It is “Engaging” with India to Resolve Vaccine Issue, UNGA President says he Received India’s Covishield
Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Oct 2: Stunned by India’s strong reciprocal measure to send all British nationals arriving in India to mandatory 10-days quarantine irrespective of their vaccine status, the United kingdom government said on Saturday that it was “engaging” with India to resolve the issue, even as new president of the United Nations General Assembly said he himself was one of the recipient of the India-made “Covishield” vaccine.
President of the 76th session of the UN General Assembly Abdulla Shahid, who hails from the Maldives, has said he had received the two doses of the Covishield vaccine manufactured in India, “as have a large portion of other countries around the world.”
The Covishield vaccine, which has been developed by UK’s Oxford University jointly with the British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, is manufactured in India by Pune-based Serum Institute of India.
“On vaccines, that’s a very technical question you have asked me. I got Covishield from India, I’ve got the two doses. I don’t know how many countries would say that Covishield is acceptable or not, but a large portion of the countries have got Covishield,” Shahid said at his first press conference here on Friday.
The UK, which initially refused to recognize “Covishield” for allowing the double dose vaccinated Indian citizens for entry into the country, later updated its stand claiming that it had no objections against the formulation of the vaccine but it did not have confidence in the vaccine certificates issued by India. The UK government decided that all travellers from India would be treated as “unvaccinated” and would have to undergo compulsory 10 days quarantine on arrival in UK and take three Covid-19 tests at their own expenses, including one taken within 72 hours of departure from India.
As the issue remained unresolved with the new regulations coming into force from Monday, India on Friday took a tough stand on the issue and reciprocated with similar restrictions and mandatory quarantine on all British nationals arriving in India from Monday irrespective of their vaccine status.
Responding to India’s decision, the UK government said on Saturday that it would continue to engage with India to expand recognition of Covid-19 vaccine certification. “The UK is continuing to work on expanding the policy to countries and territories across the globe in a phased approach. We are continuing to engage with the Government of India on technical cooperation to expand UK recognition of vaccine certification to people vaccinated by a relevant public health body in India,” the British High Commission spokesperson said in a statement.
Reaffirming that it was open to travel, the UK pointed out that a lot of tourists, students and business people have been visiting the country this year. “Over 62,500 student visas have been issued in the year ending June 2021, which is an increase of almost 30% as compared to the previous year. We want to make the process of travelling as easy as possible,” the spokesperson said.
The recent skirmish stems from India’s attempts to get the UK to recognise the SII-Manufactured Covishield vaccine as legitimate. Last month, India had warned of reciprocal action against the UK’s “discriminatory” move to recognise AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine but not Covishield. Official sources said the discussions were “still ongoing” and if London removed the restrictions on Indian travellers over the weekend, New Delhi would also reciprocate.
On Thursday, after British authorities raised concerns over India’s vaccination certificate format, which resulted in inoculated travellers from India being treated as unvaccinated, the National Health Authority (NHA) updated the certification to make it compliant with the specifications detailed in WHO’s Digital Documentation of Covid-19 Certificates: Vaccination Status format. With this, the vaccinated person’s date of birth is displayed on her/his vaccination certificate.
Meanwhile, the UNGA president Shahid, who was asked by the media persons whether any Covid vaccine should be recognised and considered other than those validated by the World Health Organisation. “I have received ‘Covishield’ vaccine from India and I’ve survived. But let someone else, a medical person make that call, not me,” Shahid added with a laugh.
India has exported over 66 million vaccine doses to nearly 100 countries through grants, commercial shipments and the COVAX facility. The Maldives, home country of Shahid, was among the first nations to receive the India-made vaccines in January when 100,000 doses of Covishield were dispatched to Male.
In all, the Maldives has received a total of 3.12 lakh doses of Made-in-India Covid vaccines through grants, commercial shipments and the COVAX facility. The UK had initially refused to recognise Covishield. However, following India’s strong criticism of the decision, the UK on September 22 amended its new guidelines and included the vaccine. But the move did not provide any relief from quarantine rules for Indian travellers vaccinated with two doses of Covishield. Later, British officials said the UK has issues with India’s vaccine certification process and not with the Covishield vaccine.
Shahid, who plans to convene a high-level meeting of the General Assembly in January to take stock of the global vaccination effort and equity, said the messages that he had received so far on vaccines in listening to world leaders at the General Debate, “has been most positive from the United States, from China, from India, from many, many corners of the world, from the vaccine producers themselves.”
“And I intend to utilise the convening power of the President of the General Assembly to bring all of them together in January, and my desire is to make sure that we all come out of the January meeting with a much more optimistic timeline where hereby we will be able to vaccinate the entire world by end of 2022,” he said.
