[ad_1]
The African Union Commission and the African Center for Disease Control Prevention (Africa CDC) have introduced a COVID-19 “Trusted Travel” portal to simplify the verification of travelers’ public health documentation during entry and exit across borders.
Key features of the portal include information on current travel restrictions and entry requirements, a database of licensed laboratories and information on vaccine compliance, as well as the CDC of Africa’s mutual recognition protocol for testing. COVID-19 and test results and vaccination certificates.
Basically, this means that tests performed in any AU member state, and even countries outside of Africa, can be verifiable in all other member states as long as the laboratories in which the tests were performed have been registered in the digital registry. .
Information on restrictions and laboratories will be provided by African Member States and validated by Africa CDC. Key technology partners include PanaBios and Econet wireless.
“Our technology partners PanaBios and Econet have shown tremendous support towards this goal, and we anticipate that their technology will help accelerate the implementation of the campaign and the safe reopening of Member States,” says John Nkengasong, CDC Africa Director.
Kenya is among the first countries selected in the first phase to adopt the portal. Some of the R&D partners assisting in the initiative, with capabilities such as machine learning and blockchain, for example Koldchain, have a presence in Kenya.
“CDC Africa’s trusted travel portal and MyCOVIDPass technologies highlight the power of partnership in our Africa campaign against COVID-19. We want to use the ‘all of Africa’ approach to ensure harmony, standardization and coordination in the development of a safe public health corridor for travelers on the continent, ”says Nkengasong.
Other countries selected in the first phase are Ghana, Cape Verde, Togo, Senegal, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, South Africa, Rwanda, Morocco, Egypt, Liberia, Uganda and Namibia.
Kenya Airways (KQ) has expressed strong support for the intervention of the African Union and the African CDC.
AD. SCROLL TO CONTINUE READING.
KQ sales director Julius Thairu says the move is critical to increasing traveler confidence in air travel in order to restore economic confidence.
“We consider the Africa CDC Trusted Travel initiative not only timely but also vital to the ongoing continental economic recovery, and Kenya Airways wishes to announce its enthusiastic support for it to be a success,” said Thairu.
Other companies supporting the initiative include Ethiopian Airlines, Ampath, Cerba Lancet Africa, Egypt Air, Asky, Aero Contractors, the governments of Ghana, Namibia and Cape Verde, among others. Thanks to the support of continental business associations such as AfroChampions, the services are free to travelers.
Progress towards digital solutions for the intergovernmental union of 55 member states is crucial even as the Union commits to meet the African Continental Free Trade Area implementation deadline of January 1, 2021, despite the pandemic. of COVID-19.
African countries have begun to open up their economies encouraged by low and declining death and infection rates.
Schools are reopening, bars and restaurants are reopening, air travel is reopening, curfews and travel restrictions are being lifted, and markets are returning to full capacity.
The continent, which has 17 percent of the world’s population, has recorded 33,430 deaths from COVID-19, or about 3.5 percent of the world’s total.
[ad_2]
