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Reuters
Reuters
Business

British PM Johnson says AstraZeneca's India COVID shot should be accepted in travel schemes

FILE PHOTO: Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson reads a magazine as he visits a COVID-19 vaccination centre in Batley, West Yorkshire, Britain February 1, 2021. Jon Super/Pool via REUTERS

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday said he saw no reason why people who received Indian-made AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines should be left out of vaccine passport schemes after the European Union did not initially recognise it.

About 5 million people in Britain are thought to have had the vaccine made by Serum Institute in India, known as Covishield.

"I see no reason at all why the MHRA-approved vaccines should not be recognised as part of the vaccine passports and I'm very confident that that will not prove to be a problem," Johnson said at a joint news conference with Angela Merkel, referring to Britain's medicines regulator.

(Reporting by William James and William Schomberg, writing by Alistair Smout)

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