Vietnam officially launches Covid-19 vaccine passport

The Ministry of Health (MoH) has announced the launch of the national health pass and procedure for its issuance, which became valid nationwide from December 20.

Accordingly, the immunity certificates are to be issued for people who have received the primary course of one of eight types of coronavirus vaccines licensed for use in Vietnam by the health ministry.

A document issued by the MoH said the country will issue a digital Covid-19 vaccine passport that will carry personal details and vaccination information, consisting of name, date of birth, nationality, targeted disease, doses of vaccines received, date of injection, lot number of the vaccine batch, type of vaccine, the vaccine manufacturer, and a code for the certification.

The name and date of birth of the bearer will be certified through other personal identification documents (passport or citizen identification card).

The QR code-based passport will be valid for 12 months from the date of issuance, the health ministry said, adding that information displayed on the passport in line with documents issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Union.

An illustration of Vietnam's Covid-19 vaccine passport on a mobile phone, which will follow EU's digital coronavirus vaccine certificates. Photo: MoH

National pandemic prevention and control apps (like PC-COVID or the e-health app Sức khoẻ điện tử) and other utility apps could receive and store the vaccination certificates in the form of a QR code according to instructions for medical data sharing by the MoH.

The ministry said that the issuance of the vaccine passports is applied uniformly across vaccination sites in the country, following three-step procedures:

First, vaccination sites are asked to review and verify the information of people to whom they have administered vaccines.

Second, vaccination sites will conduct digital signing of vaccination records on the national platform for Covid-19 vaccination management of the health sector, which will share its data with the management system for certification of vaccinations against coronavirus.

Third, the Department of Preventive Medicine under the MoH digitally signs the Covid-19 vaccine certificates. A certificate is then issued with a QR code integrated in accordance with EU regulatory standards.

As of December 22, more than 140 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been administered to Vietnamese people. Around 63 million are double-dosed and 1.3 million have been injected the booster shot.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Vietnam has recognized the vaccine passport/vaccination certificate of 78 countries and territories worldwide as of December 8. Meanwhile, Australia, Belarus, Japan, the UK, and the US had already accepted Vietnamese vaccine passports.

Vietnam is entering negotiations on mutual recognition of vaccine passports with dozens of  countries of which India and Canada have already agreed in principle, the foreign ministry said.

The Vietnamese authorities have been urgently completing related software solutions to soon issue a vaccine passport template meeting international standards.

The country is set to resume regular international flights on a pilot basis starting January 2022.