People who have been fully vaccinated by both doses of Covaxin might not be allowed to travel internationally as the vaccine produced by Bharat Biotech has not been included in World Health Organization’s (WHO) Emergency Use Listing (EUL) so far, according to a report by LiveHindustan.
Several nations in Europe are reopening in a bid to boost their travel and tourism industries and are likely to make regulations for entry of travellers based on recommendations of their respective health departments or are likely to allow people vaccinated with the shots manufactured by companies which are on WHO’s EUL list.India’s other vaccine – Covishield – manufactured by Pune-based Serum Institute of India is on WHO’s EUL.
WHO listed the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for emergency use on December 31 last year; two AstraZeneca/Oxford Covid-19 vaccines on February 15, produced by AstraZeneca-SKBio (Republic of Korea) and the Serum Institute of India; and the Covid-19 vaccine Ad26.COV2.S developed by Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) on March 12.
The UN body has also granted approval to Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine and included China’s Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine in its EUL.The two other vaccines used in India’s Covid-19 vaccine drive – Sputnik-V, developed by Russia’s Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin are not yet approved by the UN health body. The European Union (EU), United Kingdom and Canada also have not included Covaxin in their approved list of vaccines.
The WHO has not made any announcement so far regarding the inclusion of Covaxin in its EUL.Covaxin, according to WHO’s Guideline Document on “Status of Covid-19 Vaccines within WHO EUL/PQ evaluation process”, will be reviewed during a meeting which will be held between the months of May and June 2021. The document also showed that the Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical company has submitted its expression of interest on April 19.
