The United Kingdom Foreign Office has been requested to review the travel ban on visitors from India, wherein many major cities presently have low caseloads of COVID-19.
Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla, during a two-day visit to the UK, which began on Friday, 23 July, apprised the UK Foreign Office officials of the prevailing COVID-19 situation in India.
"I briefed them [UK officials] on the COVID situation in India. I pointed out that France had cleared visitors from India without quarantine, if they are double vaccinated and have a negative test. The US has upgraded India in the travel scheme, encouraged the UK to do the same and they took note of it," Shringla said, news agency PTI reported.
"Mumbai, Delhi, big cities are practically free of COVID. But we can’t rest on that situation because we are constantly vigilant, telling our citizens to take precautions so that we don’t have a third wave.”Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla was quoted as saying by PTI
Travellers from India, which is on the travel 'red list,' are presently barred from entering UK, with returning citizens required to undertake a 10-day quarantine upon their arrival in Britain.
Speaking about the EU's travel guidelines, which currently do not recognise the SII-produced Covishield vaccine, the foreign secretary mentioned that AstraZeneca, the manufacturer of the vaccine, has submitted an application to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) on behalf of the SII.
"The EU has said they will leave it to individual member states to decide and 14 EU countries have already recognised Covishield, two of them have also recognised Covaxin suo moto. We are now asking all countries that you recognise our vaccine certification on a mutual reciprocal basis, recognising the integrity of that process," he said.
(With inputs from PTI)
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