Covishield Pre-Requisite For Indians Travelling To USA From November

New Delhi: India is among the 33 counties from where fully vaccinated travellers will be allowed to enter the United States beginning November and Covishield is the only India-made vaccine that is in the list of approved vaccines as of now.

Soon after announcing the move, the White House clarified that the final decision on what vaccines would be accepted is up to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The top medical body of the country has said that it considers a person “fully vaccinated” against coronavirus if they have received any FDA-authorised jab or any vaccine that has been authorised by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Foreign nationals will need to present proof of vaccination before travel and will not be required to quarantine on arrival.

So far, only seven vaccines have been approved for use by the WHO. These include Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech, Johnson & Johnson, Oxford-AstraZeneca, Covishield (an Oxford-AstraZeneca formulation) and China’s Sinopharm and Sinovac.

The US decision to ease travel curbs came on a day India said it will resume the export and donations of excess vaccines next month. India, the world’s biggest maker of vaccines overall, had stopped vaccine exports in April to focus on inoculating its own population.