Covishield vaccine accepted for travel to Dubai for UAE residents returning from India, authorities say


Gillian Duncan
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The Covishield vaccine is accepted for travel to Dubai, health officials said.

UAE residents stranded in India are rushing to book tickets to return to the emirate after authorities said flights would resume from June 23.

But only passengers who hold a valid residency visa and have received two doses of a UAE-approved vaccine are allowed to travel to the emirate.

That led to some uncertainty over whether Covishield, an Indian-produced version of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, would be accepted.

The Sinopharm, Pfizer-​BioNTech, Sputnik V and Oxford-AstraZeneca shots have been approved for use by the UAE.

The Dubai Health Authority has replied to several users on Twitter to confirm that Covishield will be accepted.

"Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and Covishield are the same vaccine," the authority said.

Covishield is manufactured under licence by the Serum Institute of India.

Production of the vaccine began after the institute received a 1-millilitre vial from the University of Oxford containing the cellular material for the vaccine in May last year.

Within a short time, before clinical trials were even completed, the institute was making about 5,000 doses a minute.

In January, regulators in India approved the vaccine for emergency use.

The UAE suspended flights for most travellers from India on April 25 as Covid-19 cases soared in South Asia.

On Saturday, Dubai's Supreme Committee of Crisis and Disaster Management announced updated guidelines that opened up travel from India to the emirate with strict safety measures in place.

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1. Black holes are objects whose gravity is so strong not even light can escape their pull

2. They can be created when massive stars collapse under their own weight

3. Large black holes can also be formed when smaller ones collide and merge

4. The biggest black holes lurk at the centre of many galaxies, including our own

5. Astronomers believe that when the universe was very young, black holes affected how galaxies formed