Staff Reporter
THE Ministry of Health and Social Service has announced that it will soon operationalize the issuance of Covid-19 Digital Vaccination Certificates.
The certificates are expected to be issued in the next two weeks or earlier.
This is after the government of the Republic of South Africa indicated that vaccination cards will no longer be accepted and that travellers to South Africa are required to present Digital Covid-19 vaccinations certificates for entry.
“As you may recall, the Ministry, in collaboration with the African Union and Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), with technical support from the PanaBios Consortium, has implemented the Trusted Travel System (TIS) to authenticate and verify travellers’ Covid-19 test result certificates.
“A module in the system, the Trusted Vaccines (TV) is used to generate digital Vaccination Certificates for people who are fully vaccinated. The Trusted Vaccine module in the Trusted Travel System has been customized for Namibia. It is currently being refined to iron out glitches that were identified during the troubleshooting process before it is officially launched and operationalized,” Ben Nangombe, executive director of health said.
He added that the Ministry is engaging South African authorities on possible interim measures to facilitate entry for travellers from Namibia into South Africa until such time that the Trusted vaccines system is rolled out.
In the meantime, those who wish to travel to South Africa are advised to obtain negative PCR Covid-19 test results, as required by South Africa.
