Uttam Maharjan

Amid the scare of COVID-19, some countries have mooted the requirements for vaccine passports for travellers. The motive behind this is clear: to prevent the transmission of the disease from such travellers to local people and hence halt the spread of the pandemic.

A vaccine passport, also known as an immunity passport, is a legal document/certificate issued by a competent health authority after a serological test, proving that the bearer of the document is immune to a contagious disease like COVID-19. A vaccine passport differs from a vaccination record in that the latter merely proves that the bearer of the document has received certain jabs.

Antibodies are naturally produced in the body after recovery from a disease or they can be generated through vaccination. That is why, COVID-19 vaccination campaigns have been launched throughout the world so as to enable people to develop antibodies to fight the disease. After the development of antibodies, recovered or vaccinated people have protective immunity, which prevents them from being re-infected or infected with the disease. However, it is not known how long such immunity lasts. For protective immunity to be sustainable, the effects of antibodies should last long; the pathogen should mutate slowly so that protective immunity can counteract various strains of the virus; and immunity tests should have low false-positive rates.

Antibodies
As per a preliminary report of a sero-prevalence study conducted by the Ministry of Health and Population, 68.6 per cent of the Nepalis have been exposed to COVID-19 and they have developed antibodies against the disease. The antibodies, which develop from previous infections or vaccination, were found equally among people of all age groups across the country. Around 80 per cent of the antibodies were found among the people having received the first dose and 90 per cent among the people fully vaccinated, showing the effectiveness of booster shots.
Vaccine passport-holders would enjoy several advantages. They are exempted from staying in quarantine or observing social distancing rules. They can work or travel wherever they want; they will not be placed under restrictions as are other people not having vaccine passports. They can also work in high-risk zones like medical facilities.

On the other hand, vaccine passport-holders may show nonchalance towards COVID-19. They may flout health safety protocols like mask wearing and social distancing. They may thus aggravate the situation. Further, if they are yet to be inoculated against the disease, they may be unwilling to get vaccinated, thinking that they have enough antibodies to fight the disease.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), more than 90 per cent of the people develop antibodies within four weeks of COVID-19 infection. And the effectiveness of these antibodies remains for six to eight months in most people. However, owing to frequent mutations of the virus, it is difficult to ascertain long-lasting effectiveness of the antibodies. This is because new virus strains my not be recognised by the previously developed antibodies. That is why, the duration of the effectiveness of antibodies has not been confirmed yet.

This has put a question mark over the relevance of vaccine passports. What is the use of a vaccine passport when it cannot be ascertained for how long the bearer of the passport will be immune from COVID-19, or whether he or she can transmit the disease to others? Even vaccinated people, even if they are asymptomatic, could be vectors and silent spreaders. Further, COVID breakthroughs may develop even in fully vaccinated people.
There is unequal distribution of vaccines in developed and poorer countries. Developed countries have vaccines that exceed their requirements, whereas poorer nations are still struggling to acquire vaccines. In such a condition marked by vaccine inequity, introduction of vaccine passports may be an injustice to those countries where the rate of vaccination is lower. Most of the people living in such countries will be deprived of their right to travel. Making vaccine passports a precondition for travel is against the fundamental rights of people. Even the WHO is not agreeable to the concept of vaccine passports. It would be apt to mention that in March, 2021, WHO Director of Digital Health and Innovation Bernado Mariano said, “We don’t approve the fact that a vaccine passport should be a condition for travel.” Likewise, lawmakers in several US states are against the idea of vaccine passports as a prerequisite for travel.

Some countries like Aruba, Britain, Israel and Canada are hell-bent on introducing vaccine passports. The carte jaune (yellow card) is an official vaccination card issued by the WHO. It documents vaccination against diseases like cholera, yellow fever or rubella. Some countries have made the production of such a document mandatory for entry into their land. However, there is no such document relating to COVID-19 issued by the world body.

Research still ongoing
As scientists are still researching on COVID-19 and it may take several years to gather facts about the disease, introducing vaccine passports would not be a down-to-earth concept. Further, the coronavirus is mutating into several forms now and the new strains may be resistant to existing vaccines. The WHO has warned that the Mu variant of the coronavirus may be resistant to the existing vaccines. The Mu variant, a variant of interest, has been found in as many as 39 countries and it was added to the WHO’s watch list on August 30.

So it would be prudent to take other precautions like serological tests 72 hours before a flight and screening passengers upon arrival at an airport from a foreign flight. There are many types of vaccines being administered to people. In Nepal, Covishield or Astra-Zeneca, Vero Cell and Johnson and Johnson vaccines are being administered to people. The country is considering bringing in Pfizer vaccines for children and adolescents. There are apprehensions that some countries may recognise only particular types of vaccines. Anyway, introducing the concept of vaccine passports at this juncture does not seem to hold water.

(Former banker, Maharjan has been regularly writing on contemporary issues for this daily since 2000. uttam.maharjan1964@gmail.com)