Navigating Vaccine Requirements for International Students

What foreign COVID vaccines should colleges accept? What protocols should be in place for international students who weren’t able to be vaccinated at home prior to coming to campus?

AstraZeneca or Moderna? Sinopharm or Sputnik?

For the more than 500 American colleges that plan to require COVID-19 vaccines for students coming to campus this fall, a major challenge will be implementing this requirement for international students who might not have access to one of the three vaccines currently authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in the U.S.

Some of those students may have access to a different vaccine authorized by a different national regulator in their home country, or they might not have access to a COVID-19 vaccine at all.

“It runs the gamut,” said Edythe-Anne Cook, associate director for administrative services at the Student Health Center at American University in Washington, D.C. “As you can imagine, every country has their own access to vaccines, and they have their own policies and plans for how they’re distributing them.”

For the purposes of its COVID-19 vaccine requirement, American is accepting any COVID-19 vaccine authorized for emergency use by either the FDA — the Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson vaccines — or any vaccine listed for emergency use by the World Health Organization, a list that includes the AstraZeneca vaccine and the Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines, both of which are made in China, among others.

A review of dozens of colleges’ mandatory vaccine policies suggests that many are going the route American has taken of accepting either FDA- or WHO-authorized vaccines. This aligns with interim guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for individuals vaccinated outside the U.S., which says that people who have received all recommended doses of a COVID-19 vaccine listed for emergency use by the World Health Organization do not need additional doses of an FDA-authorized vaccine. By contrast, those who have been vaccinated with a vaccine that is not authorized by the FDA or WHO “may be offered a complete FDA-authorized COVID-19 vaccine series” assuming a minimum of 28 days has passed since their last dose of a different vaccine.