After New Delhi reportedly imposed a mandatory 10-day quarantine on United Kingdom citizens visiting India, the British government said it was working to make the travelling process for Indians “as easy as possible”, News18 reported on Friday.
“We are continuing to engage with the Government of India on technical cooperation to expand UK recognition of vaccine certification to people vaccinated by a relevant public health body in India,” a spokesperson for the British High Commission said.
New Delhi’s quarantine rule is a reciprocal measure as Indians travelling to the United Kingdom also have to quarantine for 10 days.
At first, the problem was that the Serum Institute of India’s Covishield was not in the UK’s list of approved coronavirus vaccines. The UK then added the vaccine to its list after New Delhi warned of “reciprocal measures” but the quarantine remained as the British government officials raised doubts about the vaccine certification in India.
The UK considers people inoculated against the coronavirus in Africa and South America, and in some other countries, including India, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Jordan, Thailand and Russia to be unvaccinated.
In response, India also reportedly ordered that British citizens travelling to India too have to quarantine irrespective of their vaccination status from October 4, many media outlets reported, quoting unidentified officials.
Following this, the British High Commission said the decision on vaccine certificates were taken by the country’s ministers in view of public health.
“We’re looking at expanding the role that vaccination can play more widely for those who have been fully vaccinated elsewhere to enter the UK,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said that the high commission had taken into account the high number of Indians travelling to the UK, be it for tourism, education or other purposes.
The spokesperson added the UK government has been constantly reviewing its visa rules throughout the pandemic to keep borders open while gradually restarting travel.
“We will continue to review the scientific evidence on other vaccines and will keep the health measures under regular review,” the spokesperson said.
On September 22, RS Sharma, the chief executive officer of the National Health Authority, had said that there were no problems with the Covid-19 certification provided by the government’s CoWIN portal.
On the same day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said at a Global Covid Summit hosted by United States President Joe Biden that international travel should be made easier through mutual recognition of vaccine certificates.
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