Yogyakarta, March 29, 2022 –
The series of events of 1st G20 Health Working Group (HWG) meetings in Yogyakarta ended on Tuesday (March 29).
The Ministry of Health as the chair of HWG directly led the discussion process on the harmonization of global health protocol standards to support the convenience of safer and more orderly international travel.
Chair of HWG 1, Director General for Disease Prevention and Control Maxi Rein Rondonuwu, said that G20 member countries responded positively and supported Indonesia's initiative to harmonize health protocol standards and equalize digital COVID-19 vaccine certificates to be recognized by all countries in the world.
"In general, all G20 member countries support the issue of global health protocol standards harmonization," said Maxi.
By 2021, G20 countries leaders have adopted health protocol guidelines such as vaccination certificates and digital health information systems. However, the ever-changing pandemic situation has caused non-uniform health protocol regulations.
Each country has different regulation applies depending on the situation and conditions in its respective territory. Differences in standards and limitations in the system for swab test documents and vaccine certificates recognition have created confusion and uncertainty in international travel which has resulted in increased costs.
The initiation of global health protocols standardization in the 1st G20 HWG is expected to become a momentum for the rearrangement of a uniform global health protocol to ease cross-border travel.
On the same occasion, the Ministry of Health also initiated the equalization of digital COVID-19 vaccine certificates through a universal verifier.
The universal verifier is a special portal established by the Ministry of Health that is able to read vaccine certificate data from other countries. This universal verifier is developed in accordance with the World Health Organization (WHO) standards so that other countries are not required to change their currently used systems and QR Codes. This is also a web-based system, allowing it to operate on all devices.
This system has been used in the ASEAN region and has been tested in 20 G20 member countries. A total of 19 countries have agreed and joined the universal verifier portal, while the other 1 country is still waiting for a technical process.
"Our verification portal is developed before the G20 event and has been used in the ASEAN region. We will then test the success of such implementation in G20 countries," he said.
The implementation of the health protocol harmonization will start from the G20 member countries and will gradually be expanded to other countries. Although standardization of health protocols is universally applicable, each country is still given flexibility in determining whether to provide requirements. States are free to apply health protocol regulations in their countries as long as they have clear procedures.
Maxi revealed that overall the HWG 1 meeting went smoothly. However, a number of issues receive G20 leaders' common consideration, including ensuring the security and privacy of vaccination data between countries, the ability of technology infrastructure in low-middle countries and recognition of digital health applications.
Some of the agreements reached in HWG 1 are planned to be discussed in more detail at the G20 Technical Working Group next April.
