The United Kingdom (UK) has announced that the vaccine certificates of over 30 new countries and territories, including Uganda will be officially recognised by the government from Monday.
This means that fully vaccinated travellers from these countries will no longer face a 10-day quarantine period on arrival in the UK, and only need to take a rapid antigen test.
This was revealed by UK Secretary of State for Transport, Grant Shapps on Thursday.
This brings the total number of nations whose vaccine certificates are accepted by the UK to more than 135.
“We can confirm that from Monday, eligible travellers from over 30 new countries and territories, including Peru and Uganda will be added to our inbound vax policy, bringing the total number of countries on this list to over 135,” said Shapps.
His announcement was reaffirmed by UK High Commissioner to Uganda, Kate Airey.
Airey tweeted, “Good news for fully vaccinated Ugandans wishing to travel to the UK. Uganda vaccine certificates have now been added to the UK COVID19 entry system from next week.”
Meanwhile, this wasn’t the only change to the UK’s travel policy that Mr Shapps announced.
He also announced that the remaining seven countries on the UK government’s COVID-19 travel red list will be removed from next Monday.
Fully-vaccinated arrivals from Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Peru, Panama, Haiti and Venezuela will no longer have to quarantine in a hotel.
However, he added that the red list system will be kept in place and a country could be added back on it if cases rise there.
“We will keep the red list category in place as a precautionary measure to protect public health and are prepared to add countries and territories back if needed, as the UK’s first line of defence,” said Shapps.
