The African Union at its high-level emergency virtual meeting of African Ministers of Health on the Covid-19 situation in Africa, have endorsed and supported the Africa Common Position on Covid-19 passport.

The Africa Common Position on Covid-19 passport “calls for a global moratorium against the mandatory and unilateral imposition of COVID-19 vaccine requirements for international travel.”

It is to also encourage “the continued development of digital vaccine wallets and related technology tools, especially those based on the African Union Trusted Vaccines (www.africacdc.org/trusted-vaccines) toolkit, to maximise the benefits of vaccination to the African public.”

This decision was reached after African Health Ministers endorsed and adapted a strategy to fight Covid-19 supported by enhanced approaches to prevent, monitor and treat.

The AU further appealed to all Member States to adopt the harmonized continental digital technologies for the response to Covid-19, “including for addressing its socioeconomic impact, paying particular attention to digital inclusion, patient empowerment, data privacy, and security, legal and ethical issues, and the protection of personal data.”

This the Union says will enable Member States to be provided with the Trusted Travel platforms at no cost to drive the digitization of their Covid-19 response efforts.

The meeting was led by the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Félix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo, and Chair of the AU; Cyril Ramaphosa, President of the Republic of South Africa and the AU Covid-19 Champion; and the Chairperson of the African Union Commission (AUC), Moussa Faki Mahamat, on the 8th of May 2021.