Singapore and the African Union have collaborated to establish a framework for the reciprocal acceptance of digital COVID-19 vaccination certificates using the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This will make it easier for people to travel back and forth between Singapore and the countries of Africa.
Beginning on May 23, fully vaccinated travellers with digital COVID-19 vaccination certificates issued in the African Union via the Africa CDC’s Trusted Travel (TT) and Trusted Vaccines (TV) platforms (trustedtravel.panabios.org) can upload and validate their certificates to verify their vaccination status through the Vaccination Check Portal (VCP) or the Singapore Arrival Card (SGAC). Because of this, they will be allowed to enter Singapore without being required to go through any kind of testing or quarantine as part of the Vaccinated Travel Framework.
In the same vein, fully vaccinated passengers who possess digital COVID-19 vaccination certificates generated in Singapore like HealthCerts are eligible to get Vaccination Passes on the AU TT and TV platforms safely and reliably.
The TT and TV platforms are based on the African Union standard for unifying digital passes and health-related screening criteria throughout Africa to facilitate smooth travel. The TT ecosystem provides access to a network of systems for health credential issuing, border risk management, digital public health monitoring, and lab, clinical, and vaccine registries to governments and authorised organisations.
The platforms have been operating since the fourth quarter of 2020 and have completely onboarded or are in the process of fully onboarding 21 key African destinations, including Ethiopia, Nigeria, Ghana, Namibia, Kenya, and Rwanda, with intentions to onboard all African countries in the next months. The TT and TV systems also permit interoperability across African digital COVID-19 platforms and those from other continents using the new PolyGlot standards adaptor.
Through the Notarise website (notarise.gov.sg), residents of Singapore who have had all their recommended vaccinations are eligible to apply for a digital vaccine HealthCert that is granted by the Singapore Ministry of Health (MOH). Notarise will provide the vaccination HealthCerts to the person’s email address and/or via the Singpass mobile app, whichever the individual prefers.
Through the Global Haven program, which is sponsored by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the PanaBIOS Consortium, a multistakeholder effort established under the auspices of the African Union, provided technical assistance for the achievement of this Global Health milestone.
In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the idea of digitally documenting COVID-19-related health data of a person using an electronic certificate is being proposed as part of the concept of Digital Documentation of COVID-19 Certificates (DDCC). After that, a digital vaccination certificate that details an individual’s current immunisation status to guard against COVID-19 may be used for continuity of care or as evidence of vaccination for reasons other than those related to health care.
To assist its Member States in adopting interoperable standards for recording vaccination status, the World Health Organization (WHO) has developed a set of guidelines and the accompanying technical specifications in collaboration with a diverse group of partners and experts.
Digital vaccination certificates are electronic immunisation records that can be accessed by both the vaccinated individual and authorised health personnel, and they may be used in the same manner as paper vaccination cards. To maintain continuity of treatment or to offer evidence of vaccination are the two main purposes of digital vaccination certificates.
