Cuba’s Digital Certificate of Covid Vaccination Will Not Have Universal Validity
Starting today, the Cuban government will enable a digital vaccination certificate against covid-19. This was emphasised by Miguel Díaz-Canel this Friday, after the Minister of Public Health, José Ángel Portal Miranda, made it public this Thursday at the daily meeting on the control of the pandemic.
It is an “important step in the transformation of this sector, which calls for a revolution in the digitisation of all its processes,” the government announced in a tweet.
The day before, Portal Miranda explained that the virtual card would be launched on February 14, in an “initial stage” that could be considered “a test” and available on the Ministry’s website. Users will download the document on their mobile phones and print the vaccination certificates.
The Minister said that those who can’t access their card “because they still aren’t ready owing to some territorial matters” should direct themselves to their health centres “to ask for the digitised card.”
The platform has been developed by a team from the University of Informatic Sciences and took as a reference the digital passports of other countries. The Cuban government said last year when it announced the idea.
The authorities say that ’the digitisation of the immunisation process has already reached around 80% of the population that is completely vaccinated.”
According to official figures, 88% of the 11.2 million inhabitants of the island, among them almost 2 million minors between the ages of 2 to 19, have received the complete program of immunisation with some of the Cuban formulas — Soberana 02, Abdala and Soberana Plus — and some 5.1 million have received the booster.
These are vaccines, however, still have not been recognised by the World Health Organization, which is required in other countries to validate the digital certificate of vaccination. The WHO list of the vaccines being evaluated worldwide indicates that they haven’t received the pertinent information for the Cuban vaccines.
In a recent report, Cuba Archive says that there is the possibility that the Regime will obtain the following “emergency approval” from the WHO “for at least one and up to three of its vaccines.”
“It’s not clear how far the vaccine candidates are from being approved by the WHO since the information in official Cuban media is scarce and contradictory,” argues the nonprofit organisation from its headquarters in Miami, “but an unexpected announcement about what Cuban hopes will happen is in line with Cuba’s modus operandi.
“If the international organisation authorises approval,” says Cuba Archive, “the number of potential buyers for these vaccines will probably increase considerably”, which, they denounce, “will greatly strengthen the Cuban dictatorship.”
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