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UK, Co-WIN issue: Just a day after British High Commissioner to India Alex Ellis suggested that his country had some concerns over India's vaccine certification, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant on Thursday said that the process was actually way ahead of the UK.
Kant said India’s vaccination has been driven by an indigenously developed, robust digital platform, Co-WIN. “It generates digital vaccine certificates in real time. Certificates are verifiable & linked to a persons Aadhar card Entire process is seamless, digital & verifiable. Way ahead of UK," he said on Twitter.
Alex Ellis on Wednesday said that Covishield vaccine was not a problem and detailed technical discussions were being held regarding certification of Covid vaccine with the builders of CoWIN app and NHS app.
"We're clear Covishield is not a problem…we have been having detailed technical discussions regarding certification, with the builders of the CoWIN app and the NHS app, about both apps. They're happening at a rapid pace, to ensure that both countries mutually recognise the vaccine certificates issued by each other," he said.
On Wednesday, some reports suggested that the UK had issues with the vaccine certification process in India. However, National Health Authority CEO Dr RS Sharma said that the UK had not expressed any concern over India's vaccine certificates generated by Co-WIN.
“They haven’t expressed any concern. The UK High Commissioner visited me on September 2,they wanted to understand technical aspects. After that their team visited twice for technical level conversations with our technical team," Sharma told news agency ANI.
The controversy began when the UK recently issued a fresh guidelines for travellers but did not include Covishield in its approved vaccines list.
Covishield is among the two indigenously manufactured vaccines India is so far administering under its vaccination programme. As the UK left out Covishield, India expressed displeasure and warned of a "reciprocal measures".
The UK on Wednesday released a revised guidelines adding Covishield in its list but the officials said that Indians would still have to follow rules made for "unvaccinated" as the country had some issues with vaccine certification.
