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Recently, Israel became the first country to introduce vaccine passports.
About Vaccine Passport
- It is a certification system that allows those who have been vaccinated against Covid-19 to travel and access certain public facilities such as restaurants, gyms, and hotels in a country.
- Even though the nomenclature comes from passports, most of the vaccine passports have been envisaged as digital documents.
- These are supposed to function as proof that the holder has been vaccinated against Covid-19 and is, therefore, “safe”.
- These will also digitise vaccination records across countries.
- While countries have begun accepting proofs of vaccination to bypass quarantine norms, a common and universally accepted version is yet to emerge.
- Beneficiaries
- Tourism and the hospitality industries.
- International air travel and the World economy.
Existing Similar Provisions
- Several associations and non-profit organisations (NPOs) have been issuing their own versions for international travel.
- The International Air Transport Association (a global trade body representing airlines) is developing an app called ‘IATA Travel Pass’ that will provide airlines and other aviation industry stakeholders with a common platform to check for the proof of vaccination and its validity.
- The non-profit Commons Project is testing the ‘CommonPass’ app, which contains a passenger’s vaccination record.
Concerns Highlighted
- The World Health Organisation (WHO) has highlighted that vaccine passports should not be introduced because there are still critical unknowns regarding the efficacy of vaccination in reducing transmission.
- Due to the limited availability of vaccines, preferential vaccination of travellers could result in inadequate supplies of vaccines for priority populations considered at high risk.
- The requirement of vaccination as a condition for travel has the potential to hinder equitable global access to a limited vaccine supply and would be unlikely to maximize the benefits of vaccination for individual societies and overall global health.
- Privacy concerns have also been raised as there is a possibility that these digital certificates could be used by authorities to track the movement of their holders.
- However, a major difficulty in implementation will be the lack of uniformity across jurisdictions in the requirement and issuance of proofs of vaccination.
Way Forward
- Vaccination proof can be produced in the form of a vaccination certificate, called an International Certification of Vaccine or Prophylaxis (ICVP) which can be carried in hand luggage, hence no requirement to put Covid-19 information online.
- Vaccine certificates, which are fundamentally different from vaccine or immunity passports, may be an effective way to start lifting physical distancing measures, but this can also be implemented once a vaccine is administered.
