The issuance of electronic Covid-19 vaccine passports is about to be widely deployed nationwide

Discussing with the press on the sidelines of the seminar to deploy electronic certificates for injection Covid-19 vaccine On the afternoon of March 22, Mr. Nguyen Ba Hung, Deputy Director of the Health Data Center, Information Technology Department, Ministry of Health said that from December 20, 2021, the Ministry of Health has issued Decision No. promulgating forms and procedures for granting vaccine passports).

After this decision, the Ministry of Health actively cooperated with the Ministry of Information and Communications and related agencies to build a certification system. vaccine passport as well as editing and adding the “digital signature” function on the vaccination management platform. Last week, the Ministry of Health piloted the system at 3 medical facilities, namely Bach Mai Hospital, K Hospital and E Hospital, the results showed that the system was ready to respond well to the implementation of vaccine passport issuance. electronic.

“We have planned to hold a conference next week to move forward to nationwide deployment,” Mr. Hung informed.

According to Deputy Director of the Health Data Center, Information Technology Department, the electronic vaccine passport has the same meaning as the paper vaccine passport. However, the electronic vaccine passport will help people more convenient in travel and international trade. Currently, according to information from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Vietnam’s vaccine passport form has been recognized bilaterally with 17 countries.

“Right after the Ministry of Health issued Decision 5772, we received a lot of questions from people about when to get a vaccine passport. There were people who went directly to the Department of Preventive Medicine and the Department of Information Technology. especially from March 15, when we open the door to international tourism, the demand will be even greater and will certainly increase”, Mr. Hung said.

Regarding the issue of which unit is responsible for issuing electronic vaccine passports when the number of people vaccinated is very large, Mr. Hung said that according to Decision 5772, vaccination facilities will perform digital signatures. In addition, the Information Technology Department has also developed a plan, depending on the actual situation of each locality, which will assign the Department of Health or CDC to digitally sign.

“This allows signing in batches, which means we can sign thousands of people at a time, not choose each person to sign. Therefore, we evaluate in terms of the process, the issuance of electronic vaccine passports is very convenient. simple, nothing complicated”, Mr. Hung emphasized.

Mr. Nguyen Ba Hung, Deputy Director of Health Data Center, Information Technology Department, Ministry of Health – Photo: Nguyen Lien

So what steps do vaccinated people need to take to get an electronic vaccine passport? Answering this question, Mr. Hung informed that, in terms of procedures, people must declare accurate information when going for vaccination. After that, the vaccination facilities will be responsible for reviewing the information and connecting to the national database on the population to verify the information.

“So people don’t need to do anything, the whole process is done by the vaccination facility, the Preventive Medicine Department is the focal point to digitally sign it. When we deploy the issuance of electronic vaccine passports, all People who have been vaccinated and have information on the vaccination management platform will have a QR code, which will be displayed on the Covid-19 PC application or the electronic health book for control purposes when going abroad.” Mr. Hung said.

The Deputy Director of the Health Data Center added that on the Covid-19 PC application, currently the Information Technology Department, the Ministry of Health is working with the Ministry of Information and Communications to build a passport display function. Vaccine. This means, if people already have the correct information on this application, it will be automatically shown the vaccine passport.

“The output is a QR code of international standards, which we can use to go abroad,” said Hung.

Currently, Vietnam is one of the six countries with the highest vaccination coverage in the world. The rate of vaccine coverage for people aged 18 years and over: 100% for 1 dose, 99% for 2 doses, and 43.5% for people who have received the 3rd dose. For people from 12 -17 years old: 1 dose is 99%, 2 doses are 94%.

Speaking at the seminar, Mr. Do Truong Duy, Director of the Information Technology Department, Ministry of Health and Information, so far, the whole country has injected a total of over 202 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine. In particular, the vaccination management platform has recorded over 193 million injections, equivalent to 96% of data entered. The number of injections that have not yet been entered is over 8 million, or about 4%.

Regarding the results of verification and authentication of information on the national database of vaccination management, from November 2021, specialized agencies of the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Information and Communications have conducted verify information, compare on data from the national database on population managed by the Ministry of Public Security.

The total so far sent to the national population database is 76,625,000 subjects vaccinated, of which 73,112,000 subjects have been verified to have information on citizen identification and identity card. and 3,500,000 subjects without citizen identification, identity card or wrong identification.

In the group with citizen identification information, there were 51,493,000 subjects with correct information when compared against the national database on population. Currently, there are still 19,039,000 subjects with incorrect information, 2,579,000 subjects with unverified information.

The director of the Information Technology Department emphasized that the verification and authentication of information on the vaccination management platform is the most important condition for the issuance of a vaccine passport. Currently, although the Ministry of Health has issued many documents directing vaccination facilities to properly enter data as well as coordinate with local police to verify information, there is still a very large amount of information. has not been “cleaned”, verified.

Workshop on implementing electronic certificates of Covid-19 vaccination, held at the Ministry of Health on the afternoon of March 22 – Photo: Nguyen Lien

According to Mr. Duy, in the coming time, the Information Technology Department will advise the Ministry’s leadership to propose coordination with the Ministry of Public Security to develop a plan to review, supplement and clean vaccination data.

Second, coordinate with the Ministry of Information and Communications and related units to study and amend Decision 5772 on the form and the process of granting vaccine passports. “Recently, after negotiating with the European Union as well as some other countries on the recognition of vaccine passports, there are some suggestions that we should amend the form. We will meet with relevant parties to advise on amendments,” said the leader of the Information Technology Department.

Nguyen Lien