Vietnam to roll out vaccine passports starting April 15

Vietnam will begin issuing vaccine passports starting April 15, the Health Ministry announced Monday.

A representative from the ministry's Department of Information Technology said localities would confirm people’s vaccination status starting April 8, and vaccine passports would be available starting April 15.

"People won’t have vaccine passports if either their vaccination info is wrong or they’re not fully vaccinated," the representative said, adding that people should re-check their vaccination info themselves to report errors.

Vietnam's vaccine passport entails info like one's name, date of birth, the disease which they're vaccinated against, number of shots and date of vaccination. Data will be encoded into a QR code.

The vaccine passport will be used in conjunction with other personal identification documents like ID cards. Data that identify people will not be encoded into QR codes for security reasons.

The vaccine passport's QR code will expire after 12 months. Following their expiry, people will be notified and a new QR code will be created instead.

The passport will be available on people's PC Covid-19 or Digital Health (So suc khoe dien tu) apps. If people don’t have the apps, they can get their passports by accessing a health ministry website, to be available this week, and filling in necessary information.

Vaccine passports have already been rolled out as a trial from late March for those who have been vaccinated against Covid-19 in Hanoi’s three major hospitals: E, K and Bach Mai. In Ho Chi Minh City, vaccine passports have already been trialed for those vaccinated at Gia An 115 General Hospital.

Vietnam had administered over 200 million Covid-19 vaccine shots as of April 1, with virtually all adults having received their first dose, 99 percent their second, and 50 percent their third.

A total 99 percent of children aged 12-17 have received their first vaccine shots, and 94 percent their second.