Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether AstraZeneca plans to apply to European Medicines Agency for approval of the covid-19 vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute in India in order for people who received that vaccine to have their covid-19 vaccinations recognised by EU countries.

Licencing applications to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) are a matter for individual pharmaceutical companies.

The Serum Institute of India (SII) manufactures both Vaxzevria and Covishield, branded vaccines which are the same as the COVID-19 University of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine. All SII-made doses approved by the United Kingdom regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and administered in the UK were branded as the ’COVID-19 vaccine AstraZeneca’ which is now known commercially as ‘Vaxzevria’. The MHRA has not approved doses branded as ‘Covishield’ and none have been administered in the UK.

All AstraZeneca vaccines given in the UK are the same product and appear on the NHS COVID Pass as Vaxzevria. The EMA has authorised the Vaxzevria vaccine and it is therefore recognised by the European Union.