Honestly, who keeps track of their vaccine card anyway? South Africa’s Minister of Health, Dr Joe Phaahla has confirmed that SA’s Health Department approved a digital vaccine certificate, which is currently in production and will become available to vaccinated citizens in the next week.
It will reportedly come as a standardised, digital vaccine passport which should open up international travel to more South Africans. “And this certificate will be able to be uploaded on your smartphone and it can be printable,” said Phaahla.
“This initiative is in line with the World Health Organisation initiated vaccination certificate.”
Vaccine passport opens aeroplane doors
More countries are opening up to fully-vaccinated individuals around the world. The current paper-based vaccine certificate system is easily forged, which means a standardised digital version should help bring order to the system.
“This much-awaited announcement is fantastic news for the South African travel and tourism industry, as it will help facilitate travel for all vaccinated South Africans and help cut through the red tape and admin when travelling,” says Oz Desai, GM of Corporate Traveller.
In terms of actual technology, we don’t have any indication as to how the digital passport will work yet. It will definitely need access to some personal information in order to verify if the citizen has received their jab by cross-checking with the Electronic Vaccination Data System (EVDS).
Phaahla confirmed this, saying that everyone who’s received the jab will be able to load their information onto the digital vaccine certificate considering they were registered on the EVDS.