British PM Johnson says AstraZeneca’s India COVID shot should be accepted in travel schemes

LONDON (Reuters) – British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday 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.

(Reporting by William James and William Schomberg, writing by Alistair Smout)