Belgium recognises India-made Covishield vaccine, becomes 15th EU nation to do so

Belgium recognises AstraZeneca`s Covishield vaccine, the Embassy of Belgium in India informed, making it the 15 European nation to do so.

New Delhi: European nation Belgium has recognised the Serum Institute of India (SII) produced and AstraZeneca and Oxford University developed Covishield vaccine, the Embassy of Belgium in India informed on Friday (July 9, 2021).

"Belgium recognises Covishield, the Astra Zeneca vaccine produced by Serum Institute of India and distributed by COVAX. An important decision for India, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bangladesh in the fight against vaccine inequality," Belgium in India tweeted.

With this, now 15 countries have been added to the list which recognises the Covishield COVID-19 vaccine. It includes Switzerland, Iceland, Austria, Bulgaria, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Netherland, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden had given approval. 

Earlier, after external affairs minister S Jaishankar had taken up the matter with the European bloc to accept COVID-19 vaccines, Covishield and Covaxin, several other European Union countries had done the same.

India had requested EU member states to individually consider extending exemption to those persons who have taken Covishield and Covaxin and said it will institute a reciprocal policy for recognition of the EU Digital COVID Certificate, as per sources.

India also urged EU to accept the vaccination certificate issued through India's CoWIN portal.

The EU green pass or European Union (EU) Digital Covid Certificate uses the European Medicines Agency (EMA) list of approved vaccines. It has only four vaccines on the list none of which are India-made.