EU Blocks Entry for Travelers with Indian-Made Covishield Vaccine, Affecting Moroccan Tourists

In its statement, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) rejected the Indian version of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine within the EU. "Even though it uses a similar production technology to Vaxzevria (the AstraZeneca vaccine), Covishield as such is not currently approved by the EU," the EMA told AFP. And this rejection "is due to the fact that vaccines are biological products. Tiny differences in manufacturing conditions can result in differences in the final product, and European legislation therefore requires that manufacturing sites and the production process be evaluated and approved as part of the authorization process."

Since this vaccine, authorized by the World Health Organization (WHO), is the one widely administered in African countries including Morocco, the African Union (AU) has expressed outrage at this rejection, stressing that it could be detrimental to African populations. Thus, the AU and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention have stated that these rules "jeopardize the fair treatment" of people vaccinated in Africa. "It’s very unfortunate, because AstraZeneca-Covishield is exactly the same vaccine as AstraZeneca-Vaxzevria," lamented Tuesday Richard Mihigo, of the WHO Regional Office for Africa, urging EU countries to use it.

Currently, only four vaccines including those from Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson are currently authorized within the EU and four others are undergoing "continuous review" for probable authorization. These are Sputnik (Russia), Sinovac (China), CureVac (Germany) and Novavax (United States).