Authorities around the world must consider as fully vaccinated anyone who has been immunized with serums approved by the WHO and major health agencies, especially for travel or gatherings, the Covax system estimated Thursday.
This position comes after the introduction on Thursday of the Covid certificate in the 27 countries of the EU, plus Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Iceland and Norway.
But, in a decision criticized in recent days by many countries, especially African, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) does not recognize the Indian version of the AstraZeneca vaccine (Covishield), which would guarantee a right of entry into these countries. The EMA believes that there are possible “differences” in the manufacturing.
Vaccines discarded: a two-tier system?
For Covax partners, any measure that only allows people protected by some of the WHO-approved vaccines to benefit from returning travel “would create a two-tier system, which would further widen the vaccine gap and exacerbate the inequalities we have already observed in the distribution of anti-Covid vaccines “.
“This would negatively impact the growth of economies that have already suffered the most,” insists the Covax program, a partnership between the World Health Organization, the Vaccine Alliance (Gavi) and the Coalition for Preparedness Innovations to epidemics (Cepi).
And the group also believes that this further undermines the already fragile confidence in vaccination, especially with the doses of AstraZeneca.
European certificate: which vaccines are validated?
With regard to the EU, countries are required to accept on their soil travelers vaccinated with the four products authorized at European Union level: Pfizer / BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson.
However, member states can, but are not obliged to, admit people vaccinated with serums authorized in certain EU countries (such as the Russian Sputnik used in Hungary), or with products approved by the WHO ( like the Chinese Sinopharm, but also the Covishield widely used in Africa).
The WHO has granted emergency approval for the anti-Covid vaccines from Sinovac, Sinopharm, Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech, the two AstraZeneca sera manufactured in India and South Korea (WHO counts this for two approvals even though the product is identical, Editor’s note) and that of Johnson & Johnson, called Janssen.
AFP
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