"Until last night, G20 delegations have no reservations on global health harmonization," he noted during the G20's Second Health Ministers Meeting (2nd HMM) press conference in Bali on Thursday.
G20 is a multilateral cooperation group that comprises 19 countries and the European Union (EU). Indonesia is holding the presidency of the grouping this year, and the summit will be held in Bali in November.
Global health protocol harmonization has been proposed since the HWG 1 meeting in Yogyakarta on March 28-30, 2022, which uses the vaccine digital certificate platform through the WHO QR code verification mechanism, he noted.
The mechanism will enter the last stage of the trial in November 2022 in 101 countries, including the G20 and European Union.
Next, the initiative will be described within the G20 agreement document to be ratified during the G20 Summit in Bali on November 15-16, 2022.
According to Rondonuwu, the World Health Organization (WHO) has included the vaccine digital certificate within the global health regulation that is currently in the amendment process.
The universally applicable digital vaccine certificate includes the COVID-19 vaccine and test certificate as a condition for cross-border travel.
In 2021, G20 leaders committed to safely restarting international travel. However, the fact that each country implements differing COVID-19 digital certificate guidelines poses a hurdle, he stated.
For instance, Indonesia uses the PeduliLindungi application created by the Communication and Informatics Ministry. Other countries, such as Singapore and China, respectively use TraceTogether and Close Contact Detector.
The verification mechanism that differs between countries causes the COVID-19 digital certificate to not be universally acknowledged since it requires an official agreement between countries.
"In the start, several countries, especially many from the European Union, have not been fully disseminated (the information)," he said.
"However, after several meetings, supported by the Working Group Team and WHO, other countries slowly accept this system," he stated.
The vaccine digital certificate is not only related to COVID-19 but it will also continue to be developed to contain other vaccine certificates, such as for meningitis, he remarked.
"If this mechanism has been acknowledged, it will facilitate international travel. We do not know if the next pandemic occurs," he remarked.
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Translator: Andi Firdaus, Fadhli Ruhman
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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