World Health Organization Warns Against Vaccine Passports For Permission To Travel

He pointed out various reasons that would prevent one from attaining a vaccine passport, such as inaccessibility of vaccines in their country of residence, conflicting medical conditions, or freedom of choice; Therefore, citizens to obtain services such as airline flights contingent on proof of vaccination would ultimately lead to a two-tier society. 

In this regard, Dr. Ryan stated:

“I think there are real practical and ethical considerations that countries will have to address, because if access to vaccines is inequities, then inequity and unfairness can be further branded into the system if we continue to make decisions on what people can and can’t do, where they can and can't go, on the basis of being vaccinated, when being vaccination itself is not something that everyone has equal access to.”

Integration of Digital Vaccine Certification in the Future of Healthcare

In the same interval, Dr. Ryan said that the actualization of a digital vaccine certification, starting with COVID-19, would serve as an asset to public health architecture – if meeting the global standard.

WHO is currently developing the technical and functional use of such; however, Ryan reiterated that WHO supports the tool for the purpose of measuring vaccination status and not for allowing or prohibiting certain societal activities. 

Although WHO cautions against the use of vaccine certificates as a means to restart international travel, the organization believes that individually-held digital vaccination records present a number of advantages such as individual record-keeping, authentication, and facilitation across the healthcare system, yet to be effectively enforced, must uphold a standard of safety, data protection, and global recognition.

Vaccine Passports on a Global Scale

Countries with high vaccination counts have already developed or are currently developing some form of vaccine passport to systemize verification and resume economic activity such as aviation.

Millions of Israelis are already utilizing the nation's green passport to access communal events and services. Denmark and Poland are in the final phases, while the EU came to an affirmative decision earlier this month.

IATA was the first to initiate a discussion as a global entity last year. Governing the technical practices of international airlines, IATA is now trialing its Travel Pass on international routes.

However, as each platform differs from the other in technical and practical use, it's too early to assess how this system would interconnect effectively on a global scale.

Types of Immunity

There are two principal types of immunity vaccines can achieve. One is referred to as effective immunity, which can stop a pathogen from causing severe disease, however, it cannot block it from entering the body or duplicating itself. The second is sterilizing immunity, which blocks infections completely while also preventing asymptomatic conditions. Sterilizing immunity is the ultimate aim of vaccine research, yet is seldom achieved. 

So far, the COVID-19 vaccines currently available have not been focused primarily on the ability to prevent transmission, but rather to prevent symptoms from developing.