British government recognises Mozambican proof of vaccination

London, 23 Nov (AIM) - The British government on Monday announced that, as of 22 November, Mozambique has been added to the list of countries with approved proof of Covid-19 vaccination for travel to England.

In October, the UK government removed Mozambique from the red list of countries that have the highest level of Covid-19 travel restrictions. These restrictions were put in place on countries where the UK authorities held concerns over the spread of variants of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19.

However, for travellers from Mozambique barriers remained. The major hurdle was that the UK did not recognise documentation from Mozambique as proof that people were fully vaccinated. As a result, travellers who were fully vaccinated were still required to take expensive tests to prove that they were not carrying the disease.

The situation was further improved when Britain decided to recognize the vaccines on the World Health Organisation's Emergency Use Listing. In October, only four vaccines had been approved by the UK government: Oxford/AstraZeneca, Pfizer BioNTech, Moderna, and Janssen. This included the AstraZeneca Covishield version, manufactured in India, that has been used in Mozambique but did not include Chinese vaccines that had been used. Under the latest update to the British regulations the Sinovac-CoronaVac, Sinopharm Beijing, and Covaxin have been added to the list of approved vaccines.

In a further move to simplify international travel, all under-18s coming to England will now be treated as fully vaccinated at the border.

As a result of these changes, travel from Mozambique is now both cheaper and more convenient. Passengers who have been fully vaccinated and have received their vaccine certificate are not required to take a pre-departure test, day eight test, or self-isolate upon arrival. Instead, passengers will just need to pay for a lateral flow test to take before the end of their second day, post-arrival.

Whilst the current level of Covid-19 is very low in Mozambique, where no new cases were reported on Sunday, in Britain the number of confirmed cases on Monday stood at just under 45,000 which represents a ten per cent increase on the level seven days previously.
(AIM)