UK Mulls Easing Travel Curbs For People Vaccinated Against COVID Abroad- Health Department

UK Mulls Easing Travel Curbs for People Vaccinated Against COVID Abroad- Health Department

The UK's Department of Health and Social Care is currently weighing up whether to include expatriates who have been immunized against COVID-19 with vaccines yet to be approved in the United Kingdom, such as Russia's Sputnik V, in the government's proposal to introduce quarantine-free travel for fully vaccinated individuals, a spokesperson for the department told Sputnik

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd June, 2021) The UK's Department of Health and Social Care is currently weighing up whether to include expatriates who have been immunized against COVID-19 with vaccines yet to be approved in the United Kingdom, such as Russia's Sputnik V, in the government's proposal to introduce quarantine-free travel for fully vaccinated individuals, a spokesperson for the department told Sputnik.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said earlier this week that the government was working on plans to allow fully vaccinated Britons to avoid the current 10-day quarantine period travelers are required to complete upon their return from countries on the UK's "amber list," which contains more than 150 countries and territories, including Russia and China.

"Most vaccinated people in the UK will have received their vaccines as part of the UK programme but we will consider how we treat those who have been vaccinated elsewhere," the spokesperson said in a written statement.

COVID-19 vaccines manufactured by AstraZeneca, Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech, and Johnson & Johnson are currently approved for use in the United Kingdom, and the Department of Health and Social Care is considering whether to recognize vaccines produced by other developers, the spokesperson said.

"There are a large variety of COVID-19 vaccines being administered worldwide. Work is ongoing to determine which non UK vaccines we might be confident to recognise, however no decision has yet been taken on this issue," the spokesperson remarked.

UK tour operators and airlines have led the calls for relaxing travel curbs for fully vaccinated individuals following a year of pandemic-related border closures and quarantine restrictions that have dealt unprecedented financial losses to the aviation and tourism industries.

More than 31 million people in the United Kingdom have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 since the launch of the country's mass immunization program, according to data published by the Department of Health and Social Care.