EU says not all COVID vaccines are the same
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LONDON (AP) – After Dr. Ifeanyi Nsofor and his wife received two doses of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine in Nigeria, they believe they will be free to travel to their chosen European destination this summer. They are wrong.
The couple-and millions of other people vaccinated through UN-supported efforts-may find themselves barred from entering many European and other countries because these countries do not recognize travel vaccines made in India.
Although the AstraZeneca vaccine produced in Europe has been approved by the European drug regulatory agency, the same vaccine produced in India has not yet been approved.
The EU regulator stated that AstraZeneca has not yet completed the necessary paperwork for the Indian factory, including detailed information on its production practices and quality control standards.
However, some experts said that the EU’s move was discriminatory and unscientific, and pointed out that the World Health Organization has inspected and approved the factory. Health officials said that this situation not only complicates travel and frustrates a fragile economy, but also weakens confidence in the vaccine because of some substandard injection labels.
With the increase in vaccination coverage in Europe and other wealthy countries, authorities eager to save the summer tourist season are increasingly relaxing border restrictions on the coronavirus.
Earlier this month, the European Union launched its digital COVID-19 certificate, which allows EU residents to move freely within the 27-nation group as long as they have been vaccinated with one of the four vaccines authorized by the European Medicines Agency and have a new Have a negative test, or there may be evidence that they have recently recovered from the virus.
Although the United States and the United Kingdom are still largely closed to external tourists, the EU certificate is seen as a potential mode of travel in the COVID-19 era and a way to promote economic development.
Officially approved vaccines in the European Union also include those produced by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson. They do not include the AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured in India or many other vaccines used in developing countries, including vaccines manufactured in China and Russia.
Individual EU countries are free to apply their own rules to travelers from inside and outside the EU, and their rules are very different, causing further confusion for tourists. Some EU countries, including Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland, allow people who have received non-EU-approved vaccines to enter the country; several other countries, including France and Italy, do not.
For Nsofor, realizing that he might be banned was “a rude awakening.” After a difficult year during the Abuja pandemic, Ensofer and his wife are looking forward to taking their two young daughters to Europe on vacation, perhaps admiring the Eiffel Tower in Paris or visiting the Salzburg in Austria Fort.
Nsofor pointed out that the vaccine he received from India has been authorized by the World Health Organization for emergency use and provided through COVAX, which is a UN-supported program aimed at providing vaccines to impoverished corners of the world. The WHO’s approval includes a visit to the Indian Serum Institute’s factory to ensure that it has good manufacturing practices and meets quality control standards.
“We are grateful to the EU for funding COVAX, but now they basically discriminate against the vaccines they actively fund and promote,” Nsofor said. “This will only provide room for various conspiracy theories that the vaccines we get in Africa are not as good as the vaccines they have in the West.”
Ivo Vlaev, a professor at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom, provided behavioral scientific advice to the government during COVID-19. He agreed that the refusal of Western countries to recognize vaccines used in poor countries may exacerbate mistrust.
“People who are already skeptical of vaccines will become more skeptical,” Vlayev said. “They may also lose trust in public health information from the government and are reluctant to comply with COVID rules.”
Dr. Mesfin Teklu Tessema, health director of the International Rescue Committee, said that countries that refuse to recognize the vaccine approved by the WHO are violating scientific evidence.
“We should accept vaccines that meet the WHO threshold. Otherwise, there seems to be an element of racism here,” he said.
The World Health Organization urges countries to recognize all vaccines it has authorized, including two vaccines made in China. The UN health agency said in a statement this month that countries that refuse to do so are “weakening people’s confidence in life-saving vaccines that have been proven safe and effective, affecting the use of vaccines and potentially putting billions of people at risk” .
In June of this year, Adar Poonawalla, CEO of the Serum Institute of India, said on Twitter that he was worried that vaccinated Indians would encounter problems when traveling to the European Union, and that he was raising this issue to the highest levels of regulators and the country.
Stefan De Keersmaeker, spokesperson for the EU executive agency, said last week that regulators are obliged to inspect the production process in Indian factories.
“We don’t want to have any doubts about this vaccine,” he said.
AstraZeneca said it had only recently submitted documents about its Indian plant to the EU drug regulatory agency. Until the agency made its initial decision in January, it did not explain why it did not do so sooner.
Public health experts warn that countries that refuse to recognize WHO-supported vaccines are complicating global efforts to safely restart travel.
Dr. Raghib Ali of the University of Cambridge said: “You cannot isolate a country from the rest of the world indefinitely.” “It is totally inconsistent to exclude people from certain countries because they are vaccinated because we know these approved vaccines. It has a strong protective effect.”
Nsofor said that he and his wife are still deciding where to spend their summer vacation and prefer Singapore or East Africa.
“I didn’t realize that vaccine unfairness has so many dimensions,” he said.
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Jamey Keaten in Geneva, Angela Charlton in Paris and Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this report.
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Follow the Associated Press’s pandemic coverage at:
https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic
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