COVID-19 test reports to be linked to COWIN App | Fusion - WeRIndia

COVID-19 test report has been made mandatory to travel across different states and countries. To help ease the process for such travellers, the government is mulling to link these test reports to the CoWIN portal.

Currently, the CoWIN portal is used for the vaccination of citizens. Their vaccination certificates are attached to the portal.

In the same way, the government wants to link COVID-19 test reports to the CoWIN portal.

National Health Authority Chief RS Sharma said that they are working on developing a similar system that is being used to download vaccination certificates from the CoWIN portal. Travellers can download their RT-PCR certificates. These are digitally signed and approved by the government. Hence any state or country can accept them without any hesitation.

Sharma added that they had created a packet with all the required information, which would be given to the Ministry of External Affairs.

Many states and countries are asking to submit the latest RT-PCR test reports which are performed before 48 hours of departure.

Initially, attempts were made to have multilateral agreements among countries so that the digital vaccination certificate of each country would be accepted. However, they were not successful. Hence, currently, countries are discussing on approval of the certificate on a bilateral basis.

The government asked other countries to approve vaccination certificates as vaccine passports. But, many countries have yet not approved it.

Also, many countries did not accept the vaccination of India in the beginning. However, India made it clear that it would accept the vaccination of only those countries that approve the vaccination of Indians. That means the vaccine acceptance would be reciprocated by India. Hence, some European countries agreed to approve Covishield vaccination for travel entry. These countries are Austria, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Slovenia, and Spain.

However, countries like the UK have not yet approved the vaccination of Indians, including Covishield.

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