VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Harmonization of travel documents related to COVID-19 or standard health protocols is very important to accelerate economic recovery. This was said by the Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin.

According to him, the Indonesian government is starting to loosen travel restrictions while implementing health risk mitigation measures. This includes the implementation of health protocol guidelines.

"Harmonization is carried out through a risk-based approach while considering other factors, such as disease epidemiology and the capacity of the health system," he said in a statement as quoted from my country's health website, Saturday (10/29/2022).

He said there are several important aspects in the harmonization of health protocol standards including political and legal aspects. Country capacity and affordability, ethical, technical issues, adaptability and use of technology.

For this reason, he said, G20 countries were invited to participate in pilot projects in the Global Public Trust Repository. This project requires G20 members to share the public-key and will be stored in the repository platform.

"Documents related to COVID-19 from citizens in G20 countries will be recognized through the QR code on the certificate. Upon arrival and departure while protecting data privacy and security," he said.

He said the global health protocol standard became a tool for implementing health protocols in every country. Even when the COVID-19 pandemic has ended, global health protocols remain a tool to anticipate the next pandemic.

“Global health protocol standards based on digital passports can be used in the future when a pandemic occurs. So the tools are there," he said.

The existence of a mutually agreed health protocol standard is considered to facilitate the movement of goods and people during a pandemic. So that the wheels of the economy can still run and at the same time provide access to the needs of tools and medicines.

He said four other achievements that Indonesia wanted to achieve include the establishment of an emergency fund for the future. At the same time, to establish a mechanism for using these funds to provide equitable access to vaccines, therapies, and diagnostic tools.

"The next achievement is to build a global network of genome sequencing laboratories. In addition to redistributing resources and development capacity, production of vaccines, therapies, and other diagnostic tools globally," he said. (RRI)