Isle of Man residents who have received the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine are being reassured that no doses branded Covishield have been administered on the Island.
Covishield – manufactured by the Serum Institute of India – has not been approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). It led to concerns that anyone who had received the Covishield vaccine would not be able to travel to the EU free from testing and isolation restrictions, despite being fully vaccinated.
The majority of the UK’s 100 million dose supply of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines – which the UK Government supplies to the Isle of Man Government – were manufactured in Wales and Staffordshire. Five million doses were, however, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India. Regardless of the place of manufacturer, all AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines administered in the Isle of Man and the UK are theChAdOx1-S [recombinant] which is approved by the EMA.
Minister for Health and Social Care, David Ashford MHK, said:
'I would like to reassure the public that all vaccines administered in the Isle of Man have been approved by the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and the European Union’s European Medicines Agency.
'All COVID-19 vaccine doses used in the Isle of Man and the UK are subject to rigorous safety and quality checks, including individual batch testing and physical site inspections, by the medicine’s regulator, the MHRA.
'As no Covishield branded vaccines have been administered here in the Isle of Man, there is no need for the public to be concerned about any EU travel implications.'
