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GENEVA: The World Health Organization will use the European Union’s digital Covid card as the basis for a global health certification system, according to a new partnership deal agreed on Monday.
Head of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and Commissioner for Health in the European Union Stella Kyriakides They signed what they described as a “historic” agreement in Geneva.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the value of digital health solutions in facilitating access to health services,” Tedros He said at the signing ceremony.
He said the EU Covid certification would now be transformed into a “global public good”, as the first step in creating a global digital health certification network.
He said the network would expand to include things like digital, international routine vaccination cards.
Its aim is to help protect people from health threats, including potential future pandemics, and to facilitate global mobility, the World Health Organization and the European Union said in a statement.
Tedros said this “will be an important part of our efforts to strengthen health systems and support our member states to better prepare for the next pandemic or pandemic.”
“The network can also play a critical role in cross-border humanitarian situations by ensuring that people have access to their health records and credentials as they move across borders due to conflict, the climate crisis and other emergencies.”
The EU Covid Certificate, which is available on paper or digitally, has been used by travelers moving within the block to show a Covid vaccine or test case.
The world’s most widely used Covid certification system is based on open source technologies and standards, and allows non-EU countries to be linked to certificates issued according to EU specifications.
At the signing ceremony, Kyriakides said the certification “showed our citizens the light at the end of the tunnel and protecting public health at the same time amidst the uncertainty of the pandemic.”
“And this EU success story quickly became a global standard,” she said, noting that nearly 80 countries have already adopted the EU Covid certification framework.
Tedros stressed that the new certification system “will be based on the principles of fairness, innovation, transparency, data protection and privacy.”
WHO will not have access to any essential personal data, which will remain the exclusive domain of governments.
“Privacy is key,” Tedros said.
“We will only maintain a directory of public keys that can be used to validate a member state’s digital health records.”



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