Hanoi (VNA) - The Ministry of Health hasannounced procedures for the issuance of Vietnam’s official COVID-19 'vaccinepassports’ along with the passport templates effective starting December 20,2021.

The COVID-19 vaccine certificates are to be issuedfor people who have received the primary course of one of eight types ofCOVID-19 vaccines licensed for use in Vietnam by the health ministry, namelyAstraZeneca’s Vaxzevria, Gamaleya Research Institute’s Sputnik V, Sinopharm’sVero Cell Inactivated along with the manufactured-in-UAE version Hayat-Vax,Pfizer/BioNTech’s Comirnaty, Moderna’s Spikevax, Johnson & Johnson’sJanssen, and Cuba Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB)’sAbdala.

The QR code-based passport will be valid for 12months.

The vaccine passports have 11 fields of information:name, date of birth, nationality, targeted disease, doses of vaccines received,date of vaccination, lot number of the vaccine batch, type of vaccine, vaccineproduct received, the vaccine manufacturer, and a code for the certification.

The name and date of birth will be integrated withother personal identification documents (passports or citizen identificationcards).

Information in the targeted disease, vaccine,vaccine product or manufacturer will be compatible with the values provided forin the World Health Organisation’s "COVID-19 vaccine tracker andlandscape" and "Value sets for EU Digital COVID Certificates"issued by the European Union.

National epidemic prevention and control apps (likePC-COVID or the e-health app Suc khoe dien tu) and other utility apps (ifgiven permission by the individual users) could receive and store thevaccination certificates in the form of a QR code according to instructions formedical data sharing as regulated by the Ministry of Health.

The issuance of the vaccine passports is applieduniformly across vaccination sites in the country, following three-stepprocedures, according to the Ministry of Health.

First, vaccination sites will review andverify the information of people to whom they have administered vaccines.

Second, vaccination sites will conduct ‘digitalsigning’ of vaccination records on the national platform for COVID-19vaccination management used by health authorities, which will share its datawith the management system for certification of vaccinations against COVID-19.

Third, the Department of Preventive Medicine(Ministry of Health) digitally signs the COVID-19 vaccine certificates. Thecertificates are then issued using QR codes in accordance with EU regulatorystandards.

By the end of December 20, Vietnam had administeredover 140 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, with over 130 million given to theadult population (69.1 million first dose, nearly 60 million second doses, andupwards of 1 million third doses for Cuban Abdala vaccines), along with 40,524additional doses and 241,237 booster shots.

First-dose coverage in the adult population hits96.9 percent and the fully vaccinated portion reaches 83.6 percent.

A total of 9.2 million doses have been administeredfor children aged 12-17, including 6.7 million first doses and 2.5 millionsecond doses.

First-dose coverage in this age group hit 73.4percent, and 28.2 percent have been fully vaccinated./.