Five million Britons are discovering an Indian “connection” that is threatening to disconnect them for the time being from the rest of Europe.

The European Union will allow Britons and others entry if their Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine was manufactured in the UK or in Europe. But entry could be barred if the same vaccine was made in India where it is called Covishield.

On Thursday, nine European countries allowed Indians to enter if they had been administered Covishield although other conditions remain in place.

According to The Daily Telegraph of London, 5 million Britons may be affected because the UK imported a consignment of the Oxford vaccine from India and administered it.

They will not be able to travel freely to EU nations as they will have to go through the quarantine requirements. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are scheduled to meet soon and expected to discuss the issue.

People in Britain were told they were receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine but not where it had been made.

This can be identified by the vaccine batch numbers included on the recipients’ vaccine cards and in the Covid travel pass available via the NHS (National Health Service) app.

“Quite frankly I feel discriminated against, for lack of a better word,” said 21-year-old Hannah Smith, who found that her first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine was produced in India when she checked the batch numbers. She added that, until the situation was clarified, she would jettison plans for a European holiday and “settle for Scotland”.

Some feel that the European Union has injected a caste system into the vaccination programme but others have pointed out that the problem seems to be no one actually applied formally for clearance to use the Indian-made vaccines in Europe.

According to The Daily Telegraph, “the EMA (European Medicines Agency) has not authorised the vaccine only because the Indian manufacturers have not yet sought a licence for the product in Europe, as the SII (Serum Institute of India) intends to predominantly supply low and middle income countries.” The version of the Serum Institute could not be obtained.

The vaccines approved by the EMA are Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and the version of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured in the UK or Europe, which is sold under the brand name Vaxzevria.

“Entry into the EU should be allowed to people fully vaccinated with one of the vaccines authorised in the EU,” a spokesperson from the European Commission said. “Member states are… not required to issue certificates for a vaccine that is not authorised on their territory.”

An amendment was made to the agreement between AstraZeneca and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the UK regulator, listing three batch numbers that were manufactured by the Serum Institute and were being “assessed and are treated as Covid-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca”. The batch numbers are 4120Z001, 4120Z002 and 4120Z003.

The Oxford vaccine is made by the Serum Institute under an agreement with Oxford University, which developed the jab, and the British-Swedish pharma giant, AstraZeneca.

On Friday, the Britons who received the Indian-made jab were being reassured the vaccine they received was just as good as the batches made in the West. In fact, Britain wanted more but exports were banned because they were needed domestically when the situation worsened in India during the second surge of Covid-19.

The Daily Telegraph stressed: “There is no suggestion that the Indian manufactured doses are in any way substandard.”

Adam Finn, from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), said Britons should not be concerned about having had AstraZeneca doses manufactured by the Serum Institute.

“The most important part of this is that people who have received these batches should be reassured that they have received exactly the same stuff as people who have received other batches made elsewhere,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

He added: “This is an administrative hurdle that needs to be straightened out but people should not be concerned that they are in some way less well protected. We’re in the early days of this new world of vaccine passports and there are lots of aspects of this that are still being sorted out for the first time.

“But it’s clearly, ultimately not in anyone’s interest, including the EU, to create hurdles that don’t need to be there. I would anticipate that this will get straightened out in due course.”

Covishield, the vaccine made in India, has been widely used in Asia and Africa. Now their citizens may also find travel to the EU is banned.

“It is outrageous,” Ayoade Alakija, co-chair of the Africa Union Vaccine Delivery Alliance, told The Daily Telegraph. “I’ve no doubt it will eventually be rectified but it speaks to the non-inclusive nature of the entire scheme… how do you exclude the majority of the world’s population from Europe on the basis of where their vaccine was manufactured?”

She added that the move reinforces the view that poorer countries are getting a “worse” vaccine. Across much of Africa, in particular, hesitancy has risen since rollout began — especially after western countries temporarily suspended use of the AstraZeneca vaccine amid concerns of very rare blood clots.

“What the world is saying to us with actions like this is: we have superior vaccines that provide better protection, because essentially your lives and health status don’t matter as much as ours,” Alakija said. “That’s the message it sends... a two-tier vaccine system for a two-tier world.”