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Vietnam to offer vaccine passport entry for three groups of people

Vietnam to offer vaccine passport entry for three groups of people

A woman is injected with the Covid-19 vaccine. Vietnam has planned to offer vaccine passport entry for three groups of people comprising Vietnamese citizens stuck abroad, foreign investors and vaccinated tourists - PHOTO: MINISTRY OF HEALTH

HCMC - Three groups of vaccinatedvpeople--Vietnamese citizens stuck abroad, foreign investors and tourists--will be able to enter Vietnam with a Covid-19 vaccine passport, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam said at a meeting on April 9.

At the meeting, information technology firms said the technology infrastructure and technical solutions for handling Covid-19 vaccine passports have been completed and are able to fully adapt to international preparations for vaccine passport deployment.

The technology infrastructure for vaccine passports includes a software and website system to check and confirm information about people entering the country such as nationality, entry documentation and type of vaccine.

Based on this report, the national steering committee for Covid-19 infection prevention and control suggested accelerating mass vaccination for Vietnamese citizens while coordinating with other countries to categorize people allowed to enter Vietnam with a Covid-19 vaccine passport.

The committee proposed dividing them into three different groups.

The first group will comprise Vietnamese citizens who are stuck in foreign countries and have been injected with the Covid-19 vaccine. The Ministry of Health is in charge of providing specific guidance on quarantining and monitoring arrivals from different countries. This group would also comprise Vietnamese investors coming back to the country after travelling abroad to seek investment opportunities.

The second group will consist of foreigners coming to Vietnam to do business. The Ministry of Health will decide the protocol for testing, quarantine and medical monitoring based on the entrants’ nationalities and the types of vaccines they were injected with.

The third group will be international tourists. The Ministry of Health has been asked to work with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to draw up plans to open the tourism market to international tourists.

Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam asked the Ministry of Information and Communications to improve the efficiency of technology solutions serving Covid-19 infection prevention and control such as compulsory online health declarations and warning short message services.

Dang Quang Tan, director of the General Department of Preventative Medicine under the Ministry of Health, said citizens of countries that have bilateral or multilateral agreements with Vietnam on vaccine passports should have a certificate from the competent authorities proving they have been injected with the Covid-19 vaccine.

These people should have received the adequate dosage as prescribed by the manufacturer and health authorities at least two weeks before entering Vietnam.

Despite some advantages, Tan said there are still some uncertainties in deploying vaccine passports.

According to Tan, the Covid-19 pandemic has been brought under control in Vietnam but the rate of vaccinated people and the community immunity level remain low. Therefore, the risk of community infections will be very high if people suffering from Covid-19 enter the country.

Besides, the coronavirus, which causes Covid-19, has been mutating and the vaccines may be less effective against some new variants.

“Different Covid-19 vaccines show efficacy ranging between 66% and 96%. Therefore, some people might still be infected with Covid-19 and spread the disease even though they have been vaccinated,” he said.

Furthermore, the duration of vaccine protection is not yet clear, so it is difficult to determine the validity period for the vaccine passports.

The vaccine passport is a digital documentation proving that the holder has been vaccinated against Covid-19. The passport operates on smartphones and functions as a scannable QR code.

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