The CEO of the Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBCSA), Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa, in a communiqué to the tourism industry, tackles the issue of the importance of vaccination passports and the alignment of those documents with what the rest of the globe is doing in this arena.
He said these digitised documents could be the primary system for South Africans to use to show their PCR-test and vaccination status and, if the system and policy allowed it, the same system could be used for foreign travellers planning to come to South Africa, to prove their PCR and vaccination status.
“Many countries are starting to accept fully vaccinated individuals without a PCR test, and a PCR test may be required for non-vaccinated travellers. As these new health certifications are added to travel requirements, several initiatives have been launched to certify and digitise PCR tests and vaccination certificates so that airlines and border authorities can be confident in the veracity of test and vaccine data,” said Tshivhengwa. And now, with greater volumes of people being enabled to travel and needing to verify their data, there was a push for digitalisation to ensure speed of processing, he said.
“The TBCSA is advocating for South Africa to adopt a similar approach to the rest of the world, where:
- Residents of other countries entering South Africa, and returning South Africans who are fully vaccinated, may enter with no other COVID health requirements.
- Non-vaccinated residents of other countries and returning South Africans should still be required to have a negative PCR test taken 72 hours or less before departure.
- In addition, South African residents travelling abroad have their locally acquired vaccination loaded on to a personal digital platform that will be recognised in other countries. This would then be the same core system South Africa adopts, and issues digital certificates from, based on the existing Department of Health Electronic Vaccination Data System (EVDS) system in which all vaccinations are recorded.
“We are advocating for South Africa to recognise the critical global personal digital systems for travellers that provide a digital certificate demonstrating the traveller's PCR test and vaccination status. It should also adopt one as the primary system it uses and should require visitors planning to visit South Africa to use it, if policy allows,” said Tshivhengwa.
