British PM Boris Johnson says Covishield shot should be accepted in vaccine passport schemes

Photo courtesy: PTI

London: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday (July 2) said he saw no reason why people who received Indian-made AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines should be left out of vaccine passport schemes after the European Union did not initially recognise it.

About 5 million people in Britain are thought to have had the vaccine made by Serum Institute in India, known as Covishield.

"I see no reason at all why the MHRA-approved vaccines should not be recognised as part of the vaccine passports and I`m very confident that that will not prove to be a problem," Johnson said at a joint news conference with Angela Merkel, referring to Britain`s medicines regulator.

India saw a single-day rise of 46,617 new coronavirus infections, taking the tally of COVID-19 cases to 3,04,58,251, while the national recovery rate has crossed 97 per cent, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Friday.

The death toll due to COVID-19 rose to 4,00,312 with 853 daily fatalities.