As the Group of 20 (G20) meeting in Bali, Indonesia wraps up, world leaders signed on to a declaration to "build on the successes" of COVID-19 vaccine passports, with the intention of creating a global verification system to facilitate international travel."We support continued international dialogue and collaboration on the establishment of trusted global digital health networks as part of the efforts to strengthen prevention and response to future pandemics, that should capitalize and build on the success of the existing standards and digital COVID-19 certificates," the statement reads.The G20 leaders, who represent the 19 largest world economies and the European Union, recognized the need for strengthening local and regional health product manufacturing capacities and cooperation, as well as facilitating better access to vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics globally.The statement also affirms the countries' support of the World Health Organization mRNA Vaccine Technology Transfer hub, which aims to build capacity in low- and middle-income countries to produce mRNA vaccines.The countries said they welcome joint production and research of vaccines and acknowledge the importance of shared technical standards and verification methods. This is to be done under the framework of the International Health Regulations to "facilitate seamless international travel, interoperability, and recognizing digital solutions and non-digital solutions, including proof of vaccinations."On Monday, Indonesia's Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin spoke about the need for a Digital Health Certificate using World Health Organization (WHO) standards. He said this will be introduced during the next World Health Assembly in Geneva May 2023."If you have been vaccinated or tested properly, you can move around. So for the next pandemic, instead of stopping the movement of people 100%, you can still provide some movement of the people," Sadikin said."So hopefully during the next pandemic, we can still see some movement of people, movement of goods, and movement of the economy."In August 2021, WHO published a book on the implementation of vaccine passports, claiming “a health pass based solely on individual vaccination status may increase the risk of disease spread.” This is despite recent evidence that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines do not prevent transmission of, or infection from, the virus.
