Australia okays Covishield as ‘recognised vaccine’ for incoming travellers

Canberra/New Delhi : Australia on Friday gave the go-ahead to Serum Institute of India’s Covishield as a ‘recognized vaccine’ for incoming travellers.

A media statement from Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s office said the country’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has advised that the Covishield vaccine be considered as a ‘recognised vaccine’ for the purpose of “determining incoming international travelers as being properly vaccinated”.

“Today, the TGA has published its initial assessment of the data on the protection offered by the Coronavac (Sinovac) and Covishield (AstraZeneca/Serum Institute of India) vaccines and has advised that these vaccines should be considered as ‘recognised vaccines’ for the purpose of determining incoming international travellers as being appropriately vaccinated,” it said.

It said that “declaring certain COVID-19 vaccines as ‘recognised vaccines’ is separate to a regulatory decision on whether they are approved for use for vaccination in Australia, which has not been made by the TGA”.

Australia has approved four COVID-19 vaccines for use by the TGA – Pfizer (Comirnaty), AstraZeneca (Vaxzevria), Moderna (Spikevax) and COVID-19 Vaccine Janssen.

TGA is also “reviewing other vaccines in widespread use around the world” for the purposes of determining ‘recognised vaccines’, it said.

“We need to ensure that we keep Australians safe without creating unnecessary obstacles to people who have been fully vaccinated overseas from coming to our country,” it said.

It said that “in the coming weeks the government will finalise the processes for people to be able to show their vaccination status if they have had a TGA ‘recognised vaccine’.

“People who have received vaccines not recognised by the TGA, or who are unvaccinated, will be required to undertake 14 days of managed quarantine on arrival”, it said.

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