Switzerland, 7 other EU countries add Covishield in 'Green Passport' list

New Delhi : One day after India formally requested European Union member countries to add both Covishield and Covaxin in their exemption list for the passport, Switzerland and 7 other European Union nations have added Serum Institute-manufactured Oxford-Astrazeneca vaccine.

Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Greece, Iceland, Ireland and Spain are the seven EU member countries that accepted COVISHIELD vaccine on Thursday.

On Wednesday India had said that failure to include Covishield and Covaxin will force India to implement mandatory quarantine for European Union citizens.

Urging the member states to accept vaccination certificates issued through the CoWIN portal, Indian authorities had said that ‘the genuineness of such vaccination certification can be authenticated through CoWIN’.

So far only four vaccines - Comirnaty of Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, Vaxzervria by AstraZeneca-Oxford and, Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen — have been approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

Only people vaccinated with one of those vaccines will be issued a travel passport to travel within European Union nations during the pandemic.