Adar Poonawalla, the CEO of the Serum Institute of India (SII), has said that he took up the issue of the European Union not recognising the AstraZeneca vaccine doses produced by his company, branded as Covishield, in its ‘Green Pass’ for post vaccination travel to and from the bloc.
"I realise that a lot of Indians who have taken Covishield are facing issues with travel to the E.U., I assure everyone, I have taken this up at the highest levels and hope to resolve this matter soon, both with regulators and at a diplomatic level with countries," (sic) he tweeted on June 28.
I realise that a lot of Indians who have taken COVISHIELD are facing issues with travel to the E.U., I assure everyone, I have taken this up at the highest levels and hope to resolve this matter soon, both with regulators and at a diplomatic level with countries.— Adar Poonawalla (@adarpoonawalla) June 28, 2021
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Speaking to CNBC-TV18, Poonawalla said he has already applied to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for approval of Covishield in the European markets. He added that he is taking up the issue of clearance of Covishield with the EMA and diplomatically.
“Covishield is already cleared by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United Kingdom's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (UKMHRA), so I hope the EMA clearance will also come on over the next few weeks,” he added.
The EU came out with its Green Pass on June 27, wherein it specified that the digital “vaccine passport” will be available from July 1 for those who received vaccines with EU-wide marketing authorisation.
So far, the EMA has authorised four vaccines – Pfizer-BioNTech’s Comirnaty, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen and AstraZeneca (branded Vaxzervria).
The decision has become controversial as India and many other low and middle-income countries dependent on India and the World Health Organisation’s COVAX initiative have received Covishield jabs.
