EU says not all Covid-19 vaccines are equal, throwing travellers’ plans into disarray and undermining confidence in shots. EU regulators have refused to recognise vaccines made in India, China and Russia, despite their WHO approval.
The couple – and millions of other people vaccinated through a United Nations-backed effort – could find themselves barred from entering many European and other countries because those nations don’t recognise the Indian-made version of the vaccine for travel.Although AstraZeneca vaccine produced in Europe has been authorised by the continent’s drug regulatory agency, the same shot manufactured in India hasn’t been given the green light. EU regulators say AstraZeneca hasn’t completed the necessary paperwork on the Indian factory, including details on its production practices and quality control standards.
But some experts describe the EU move as discriminatory and unscientific, pointing out that the World Health Organisation has inspected and approved the factory. Health officials say the situation will not only complicate travel and frustrate fragile economies but also undermine vaccine confidence
by appearing to label some shots substandard.As vaccination coverage rises across Europe and other rich countries, authorities anxious to salvage the summer tourism season are increasingly relaxing coronavirus border restrictions. Earlier this month, the EU introduced its digital Covid-19 certificate, which allows EU residents to move freely in the 27-nation bloc as long as they have been vaccinated with one of the four shots authorised by the European Medicines Agency, have a fresh negative test, or have proof they recently recovered from the virus.
While the US, Britain and much of Asia remain largely closed to outside visitors, the EU certificate is seen as a potential model for travel in the Covid-19 era and a way to boost economies.The officially EU-endorsed vaccines also include those made by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson. They don’t include the AstraZeneca shot made in India or many other vaccines, including those manufactured in China and Russia.
Individual EU countries are free to apply their own rules for travellers from inside and outside the bloc, and their rules vary widely, creating further confusion for tourists. Several EU countries, including Belgium, Germany and Switzerland, allow people to enter if they have had vaccines not endorsed by the EU; others, including France and Italy, don’t.
For Nsofor, the realisation he could be barred was “a rude awakening”. After a tough year of working during the pandemic in Abuja, Nsofor and his wife were looking forward to a European holiday with their two young daughters, perhaps admiring the Eiffel Tower in Paris or touring Salzburg in Austria.
Nsofor and his wife and millions of others who were vaccinated through a UN-backed effort to distribute Covid-19 shots are effectively banned from entering the European Union and other countries, which do not recognise the Indian-made version of the vaccine. Photo: AP/Gbemiga Olamikan
Nsofor and his wife and millions of others who were vaccinated through a UN-backed effort to distribute Covid-19 shots are effectively banned from entering the European Union and other countries, which do not recognise the Indian-made version of the vaccine. Photo: AP/Gbemiga Olamikan
Nsofor noted that the Indian-made vaccine he received had been authorised by WHO for emergency use and had been supplied through Covax, the UN-backed programme to provide shots to poor corners of the world. WHO’s approval included a visit to the Serum Institute of India factory to ensure that it had good manufacturing practices and that quality control standards were met.“We’re grateful to the EU that they funded Covax, but now they are essentially discriminating against a vaccine that they actively funded and promoted,” Nsofor says. “This will just give room to all kinds of conspiracy theories that the vaccines we’re getting in Africa are not as good as the ones they have for themselves in the West.”Ivo Vlaev, a professor at Britain’s University of Warwick who advises the government on behavioural science during Covid-19, agrees that Western countries’ refusal to recognise vaccines used in poor countries could fuel mistrust.
To exclude some people from certain countries because of the vaccine they’ve received is wholly inconsistent because we know that these approved vaccines are extremely protective Dr Raghib Ali, University of Cambridge. “People who were already suspicious of vaccines will become even more suspicious,” Vlaev says. “They could also lose trust in public health messages from governments and be less willing to comply with Covid rules.”Dr Mesfin Teklu Tessema, director of health for the International Rescue Committee, says countries that have declined to recognise vaccines cleared by WHO are acting against the scientific evidence.The WHO urged countries to recognise all of the vaccines it has authorised, including two Chinese-made ones, Sinopharm and Sinovac. Countries that decline to do so are “undermining confidence in life-saving vaccines that have already been shown to be safe and effective, affecting uptake of vaccines and potentially putting billions of people at risk,” the UN health agency said in a statement this month.
In June, the Serum Institute of India’s CEO, Adar Poonawalla, tweeted that he was concerned about vaccinated Indians facing problems travelling to the EU and said he was raising the problem at the highest levels with regulators and countries.
Stefan De Keersmaeker, a spokesman for the EU’s executive arm, said last week that regulators were obliged to check the production process at the Indian factory.AstraZeneca said it only recently submitted the paperwork on the Indian factory to the EU drug regulatory agency. It didn’t say why it didn’t do so earlier, before the agency made its original decision in January.
The refusal of some national authorities to recognise vaccines manufactured outside the EU is also frustrating some Europeans immunised elsewhere, including the US.
Gerard Araud, a former French ambassador to Israel, the US and the UN, tweeted this week that France’s Covid-19 pass is a “disaster” for people vaccinated outside the country.Public health experts warned that countries that decline to recognise vaccines backed by WHO are complicating global efforts to safely restart travel.“You can’t just cut off countries from the rest of the world indefinitely,” says Dr Raghib Ali of the University of Cambridge. “To exclude some people from certain countries because of the vaccine they’ve received is wholly inconsistent because we know that these approved vaccines are extremely protective.”Nsofor says he and his wife are still deciding where to take their summer holiday and are leaning towards Singapore or East Africa. “I didn’t realise there were so many layers to vaccine inequity,” he says.
