COVID-19 testing enough for global travel: EAM S Jaishankar
Moscow/IBNS: India's External Affairs Minister (EAM) Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on Friday said COVID-19 testing is enough for global travel while some countries have made vaccination mandatory, media reports said.
Jaishankar made the comment in Russia.
"People who are tested before for international travel and tested on arrival is a good enough basis for travel, but some countries have now introduced the issue of vaccination," he said, while addressing a joint press conference with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, as quoted by Hindustan Times.
Jaishankar said he and Lavrov discussed how travellers of India and Russia are not "discriminated against" and an understanding over travel can be reached.
Earlier, the European Union (EU) had issued a "Green Pass" scheme under which people vaccinated with any of the Indian versions of anti-COVID-19 vaccines were not allowed to enter.
The EU countries were accepting only the vaccines approved by the European Medicines Agency, which are Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Janssen, despite Covishield being the Indian version of Astrazeneca.
After New Delhi threatened to replay the same song for the EU travellers coming to India by making them go through the mandatory quarantine, several EU nations had cleared Covishield, which is manufactured by Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII).
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