WHO 'deeply concerned' over approved COVID vaccines not being recognized in other nations

In a major development, the World Health Organisation (WHO) expressed 'deep concerns' over COVID-19 vaccines that have been approved by the global health body for emergency use not being recognised in all countries.

While addressing a press meet, Senior Advisor to WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Dr Bruce Aylward, said "The organisation again calls on all countries to ensure the recognition of vaccines proven to be efficacious and safe and certainly that meet WHO Emergency Use Listing criteria."

"On the importance of recognising vaccines for international travel, the WHO is still deeply concerned that vaccines that have been proven efficacious, have been approved by WHO through the Emergency Use Listing procedure are not being recognised in all countries," He added. 

Director of the Department of Immunisation, Vaccines and Biologicals at WHO, Dr Katherine O'Brien further added, "recognition of vaccines is an important issue because it is pushing people to be vaccinated with more doses than they would otherwise be recommended to receive if the vaccines that they've already received that are WHO Emergency Use Listed are not recognised. And this again is not something that we should be doing in the face of constrained supply and inadequate supply at this point in countries where people are receiving and seeking out vaccines that they otherwise wouldn't need for the purpose of their own protection and their own vaccine status."

"So I think these are, these are some of the reasons why this is such a critical issue. And again calling on all countries to recognize the WHO EUL vaccines, which have met the criteria of efficacy, safety and quality manufacturing," Dr Katherine O'Brien stated.

UK Recognises Covishield Amid 'Vaccine Racism' Row

On September 22, the United Kingdom had revised its travel advisory accepting the Serum Institute of India's (SII) Covishield as an 'approved vaccine'. The decision came in the aftermath of the massive uproar against the UK over its new travel regulations which highlighted a clear 'vaccine bias' against several countries including India. 

In its updated advisory, the UK Government had said, "From 4 AM Monday 4 October, you will qualify as fully vaccinated if you are vaccinated under an approved vaccination programme in UK, Europe, USA or UK vaccine programme overseas with a full course of Oxford/Astra Zeneca, Pfizer, BioNTech, Moderna or Janssen vaccine." The advisory mentioned that Covishield which was a formulation of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine would now qualify as one of the 'approved vaccines'. "Formulations of the 4 listed vaccines such as -- AstraZeneca Covishield, AstraZeneca Vaxzevria and Moderna Takeda qualify as approved vaccines," it added.

The earlier non-recognition of Covishield was taken up strongly by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar, during his meeting with UK's new foreign secretary, had raised the discriminating policy and its impact on the citizens travelling to the United Kingdom. India also asserted that it would have to undertake 'reciprocal measures' if the issue was not resolved.

(With PTI Inputs)