Belgium joins the list of countries to recognize Covishield amid EU’s ‘vaccine green pass’ row: On Friday, Belgium joined the list of countries that recognized India-made Covid-19 vaccine Covishield. This vaccine is developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, produced by the Serum Institute of India (SII).
Today, Via a Twitter post, the Embassy of Belgium in India said, Belgium recognizes Covishield, the AstraZeneca vaccine which is produced by SII and distributed by COVAX. A key decision for India, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, the Maldives in the fight against inequality of vaccines.
Latvia, Finland, and the Netherlands were the last countries that approved the Covishield vaccine for inbound traveling.
Arnaud Lion, the Charge d’Affaires of Belgium in India, said that the Covishield is one of the major vaccines, under the COVAX facility. This vaccine will be used not only in India and its neighboring countries but also across the globe. Isolation of a country is not possible. We are considering India under third category countries, which means essential travel is only allowed by us. Since Monday, we have delivered visas in Delhi and Mumbai. Persons who are vaccinated with vaccines like Covishield have to undergo covid-19 testing, on the same day they have arrived. If the test showed a negative result then there is no need for quarantine.
Austria, Greece, Germany, Slovenia, Estonia, Iceland, Ireland, Spain, and Switzerland are the other countries in the EU that have recognized the Indian vaccine. This happened, just a day after External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar took up with the EU to accept Covishield and Covaxin vaccines.
Meanwhile, Estonia has said that it will recognize all Indian government authorized vaccines to travel to Estonia. Recently, Belgium joins the list of countries to recognize Covishield.
India had requested EU states to consider traveling of people who have taken the Covishield and Covaxin vaccines. and also said that it will institute a reciprocal policy for the EU Digital COVID Certificate’s recognition.
