Ministry of Health will issue 'vaccine passports' to people from April 15

At the conference, Deputy Minister of Health Tran Van Thuan said that, in carrying out the tasks assigned by the Government, the systems are now ready to issue "vaccine passports" to people.

A representative of the Department of Administrative Police for Social Order (Ministry of Public Security) said that as of March 30, the COVID-19 vaccination management platform had sent about 154 million injections, with about 41 million injections yet to be sent (these are old injections that lack basic information and cannot be sent). Of the 154 million injections sent, the Ministry of Public Security has verified the correct information for 112,569,288 injections, while the remaining 41,431,113 injections have been verified with incorrect information.

Speeding up the vaccination progress is one of the tasks being actively implemented. Photo: Tien Hung

Regarding the solution to clean up data and add old subjects, the representative of the Ministry of Public Security requested that vaccination facilities be responsible for reviewing and coordinating with local police to supplement, verify, authenticate information and enter data into the system.

Mr. Do Truong Duy - Director of the Department of Information Technology (Ministry of Health) said that so far, the preparation work for the implementation of the issuance of "vaccine passports" has been basically completed. People who have been vaccinated, have accurately declared their information and have had their data entered into the vaccination system by vaccination facilities, and have their information verified with the National Population Database, will be issued a "vaccine passport" without having to go through any procedures.

The "vaccine passport" will be displayed on the Electronic Health Book application, PC-Covid, or looked up on the Ministry of Health's Electronic Information Portal.

For those who have not been issued a "vaccine passport" due to missing or incorrect information, they should report it to the COVID-19 Vaccination Information Portal (at https://tiemchungcovid19.gov.vn), or contact the vaccination facility directly for supplementation or correction. A representative of the Ministry of Health said that from now on, people need to check their vaccination information on the Electronic Health Book application.

To ensure the benefits of vaccinated people, Deputy Minister Tran Van Thuan requested vaccination facilities nationwide to review, supplement, and verify COVID-19 vaccination information, enter complete and accurate data of people vaccinated against COVID-19 into the system to issue "vaccine passports" and connect and share data with the National Population Database.

"Vaccine passport" is essentially an electronic vaccination certificate. This certificate is issued according to European standards so that when people enter or travel and need to provide a vaccination certificate, this is considered a travel document, making it easier for people to enter other countries.

Previously, people's vaccination information had not been standardized and had not been updated according to European criteria, so it could not be used when people entered or exited the country.

Passengers at Vinh Airport. Photo: Tien Dong

In the coming time, the Ministry of Health will continue to work with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to negotiate and reach an agreement with the countries that have recognized Vietnam's vaccination certificates. From there, it will confirm which application will create the best conditions for people to use when entering and exiting the country, as well as the countries that will be able to read the data on our application. On that basis, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will have specific instructions or announcements to the people.

The vaccine passport process consists of 3 steps:

Step 1: Vaccination facilities review, verify and authenticate information of vaccinated people on the vaccination platform.

Step 2: After the vaccination facilities have reviewed and verified the information of the vaccinated people, they will sign to confirm the information of the vaccinated people. The data will then be sent to the management system to issue "vaccine passport" certificates.

Step 3: The Department of Preventive Medicine (Ministry of Health) is responsible for centralized digital signature to issue "vaccine passports".

As of April 4, Bach Mai Hospital has certified 2,013 subjects with nearly 6,000 injections. In Ho Chi Minh City, Gia An 115 General Hospital has certified 425 subjects.

According to statistics on the COVID-19 Vaccination Portal, as of April 1, the whole country has administered more than 200 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine. The COVID-19 vaccination coverage rate for people aged 18 and over with the first dose is nearly 100%, the second dose is 99%, and the rate of people who have received the third dose is about 50%.

For people aged 12 to 17, the first injection rate is 99%, the second injection rate is 94%. The Ministry of Health and localities are also preparing to vaccinate children aged 5 to under 12 against COVID-19 in early April.