No To ‘Vaccination Passports’

Photo: Techa Tungateja/123rf

While WHO is against so-called COVID-19 “vaccination passports”, the agency does support digitalization of health information, describing it as “a potential way forward” to better primary health care.

Many countries provide paper records for vaccinations, for example to show children have received routine immunizations, but these can be lost, destroyed or damaged. Digitalization would safeguard this information.

Dr. Michael Ryan, WHO Executive Director, said e-certification of COVID-19 vaccines would be useful for Governments to manage registration of vaccination in their countries, while also promoting better monitoring of vaccine batches and coverage.

But Dr. Ryan cautioned against using digital certification of vaccinations, for example, for allowing a person to travel, or to enroll in university.

He recalled that WHO’s Emergency Committee has recommended that currently, there is no justification for vaccine certification for international travel as vaccines are not widely available nor equitably distributed.

“We have to be exceptionally careful because right now we are dealing with a tremendously iniquitous situation in the world, where the likelihood of being offered, or getting, a vaccine is very much to do with the country you live in; very much to do with level of wealth, the level of influence, that you or your Government has on global markets,” Dr. Ryan said.

Source: Caribbean News Now

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