Cleared for takeoff? World eyes health passports

Cleared for takeoff? World eyes 'health passports'

From digital certificates to "health passports", countries and airlines across the globe are hoping to relaunch travel by letting people prove their Covid-free status.

But with patchy vaccine access around the world and mounting concerns over data privacy, questions are swirling about how the measures will work in practice.

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Most programmes under development are geared towards facilitating travel and come in the form of smartphone apps with varying criteria for a clean bill of health.

Vaccine passports, for example, are a popular way to approach proof of immunity with jab rollouts underway across the globe.

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There are also apps that accept positive antibody tests as proof of immunity for those who have had the virus and recovered.

But the World Health Organization has warned that there is no evidence to show that recovered Covid sufferers with antibodies are protected from a second infection.

French President Emmanuel Macron recently suggested yet another, more localised form of Covid-free permission slip: the so-called "health pass".

This certification would only be valid within France's borders but would allow a fully vaccinated person to, for example, eat in restaurants and attend certain events.

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This week China launched a digital health certificate for its 1.3 billion citizens that shows the holder's vaccine status and virus test results.

Greece and Cyprus have vaccination passports specifically for travel to and from Israel, which has fully vaccinated 44 percent of its population.

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Denmark and Sweden are also looking to launch health passports soon, with the European Union promising to propose a "green pass" to ease movement within the entire Union despite resistance from France and Germany.

- Is it an official travel document? -

No, and there is currently no effort underway to establish a required document to travel between countries.

The Chinese health passport is an attempt to make it easier for its citizens to travel abroad, but without recognition from other countries it is of little use.

For the moment, the applications are meant to facilitate various health checks still in place at different borders, with airlines among major proponents.

Through several of its member carriers, the International Air Transport Association has been offering a digital pass allowing passengers to easily prove their health status before boarding.

- Can we make it official? -

Making health passports stricter or requiring them for travel could invite legal challenges.

A major worry is that banning unvaccinated people from travelling would exacerbate inequality since access to jabs is far from universal.

There are also concerns over how applications would access users' personal data.

In France, there is already an official database of citizens who have been vaccinated against Covid-19, approved by the country's privacy watchdog.

However, the body has warned it will re-examine the issue should the database be put to use in the context of a health passport.

 Ivory Coast's ruling party has won an absolute majority in parliament, the country's electoral commission announced on Tuesday, three days after a peaceful vote raised hopes that the country's recent violent tensions were behind it.
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The West African country's electoral commission said President Alassane Ouattara's RHDP party had won a majority of seats in the 255-seat National Assembly.

Saturday's vote passed off peacefully and, for the first time in a decade, included all of the country's main political players, providing hope that Ivory Coast has begun to emerge from recent violent tensions.

It was a key test of stability following violence surrounding October's presidential vote, which was boycotted by the opposition and claimed 87 lives in the former French colony.

The main opposition PDCI has, however, alleged electoral fraud, while the FPI party of ex-president Laurent Gbagbo had called on its supporters to remain calm and await the official results.

"The RHDP has succeeded in tipping many regions in its favour and it is in the process of acquiring the status of a national party, beyond its traditional strongholds in the north of the country," political scientist Sylvain N'Guessan told AFP.

The PDCI opposition, the party of ex-president Henri Konan Bedie, "seems to be losing momentum", he said, and appears sure to have fewer seats than in the previous legislature.

The return of Gbagbo's FPI, or Ivorian Popular Front, which participated after a decade of boycott, "did not have a great influence on either the score or the turnout", said N'Guessan.

'National reconciliation'

The FPI had boycotted all polls since the arrest of Gbagbo in 2011 in Abidjan and his transfer to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

His arrest followed violence after the 2010 presidential election that left 3,000 dead.

Gbagbo was acquitted in January 2019 and is now living in Brussels pending the outcome of an appeal, though he has announced plans to return home.

Ouattara has recently reached out to his old foe in a bid for "national reconciliation" and issued Gbagbo with two passports, one of them a diplomatic pass.

The 79-year-old president angered opponents last year when he announced he would seek a third term in office – a move critics said sidestepped constitutional limits.

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For the legislative elections, Bedie's PDCI formed an alliance with Together for Democracy and Sovereignty, a coalition including supporters of Gbagbo and dominated by his FPI. 

The results of the last three constituencies were expected Tuesday, including from the Yopougon area of Abidjan, the largest in the country with nearly 500,000 voters out of a total of 7.4 million.

Results from Yopougon will carry heavy symbolic weight as it had in the past been a major Gbagbo stronghold. 

Ouattara's RHDP has already won several former strongholds of the PDCI, including in the capital Yamoussoukro.