Vietnam begins rolling out vaccine passports today

Vietnam’s Ministry of Health (MoH) began issuing vaccine passports today [April 15].

The country’s vaccine passport follows standards issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Union (EU) that are being applied by 62 nations.

The passport will be displayed on PC Covid-19 or Digital Health (So suc khoe dien tu) apps. If people don’t have the apps, they can get their passports by accessing the health ministry's portal and filling in the necessary information. They will then receive the passports by email.

Vietnam's vaccine passport is displayed on the PC Covid-19 app installed on a mobile phone. Photo: MoH

The passport template was revealed by the health ministry last December, which comprises information like one's name, date of birth, the disease which they're vaccinated against, and the number of shots and date of vaccination. Data will be encoded into a QR code.

The name and date of birth will be integrated with other personal identification documents (passports or citizen identification cards).

The vaccine passport's QR code will expire after 12 months. Following their expiry, the subject will be notified and a new QR code will be created instead.

People won’t have vaccine passports if either their vaccination information is wrong or they’re not fully vaccinated. They should double-check their vaccination info themselves to report errors.

The vaccine passport will be used in conjunction with other personal identification documents like identification cards. Data that identify people will not be stored in QR codes for security reasons.

So far Vietnam has reached mutual recognition of vaccine passports with 19 countries, namely Japan, the US, the UK, Australia, India, Belarus, Cambodia, the Philippines, Palestine, Maldives, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Turkey, Singapore, Saint Lucia, the Republic of Korea, Iran and Malaysia.

As of April 14, Vietnam had administered around 209 million vaccine shots, with nearly 100% of people over 18 having received full two shots and over 51% having received a booster shot. In the 12-18 group age, 99.9% have got one shot and 95.3% full two shots, and 50% the third.

A total of 99% of children aged 12-17 have received their first vaccine shots, and 94% the second.

Vaccination for Vietnamese children from 5 to 11 started on April 14 in the northern province of Quang Ninh, and the children will also be granted vaccine passports like people in other age groups.