India argues against Covid-19 'vaccine passports'

Even as Japan and several European Union nations are set to introduce “Vaccine Passports” soon, India on Thursday tacitly argued against the move and reminded the world that a large percentage of people in many developing nations had not been inoculated with the Covid-19 jabs.

“There is an ongoing global debate on the issue of so-called vaccine passports", Arindam Bagchi, spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), told journalists in New Delhi, adding that the Government of India felt that the debate had to be linked with “the larger issue of vaccine equity” given that many developing countries had not yet been able to inoculate a large percentage of population against the Sars-CoV-2 infection.

Also read: Japan to introduce vaccine passports by July

At least 15 of the 27 nations, which are members of the European Union, have either started issuing “Vaccine Passports” or are preparing to do so to facilitate their citizens to move freely from one country to other without being hindered by the travel restrictions imposed in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Japan is also planning to introduce Vaccine Passports for its citizens from next month.

"We would favour discussions on the subject of vaccine passport with greater focus on vaccine equity," the MEA spokesperson said, articulating New Delhi’s position on the issue.

He said that Government of India was not planning to introduce vaccine passports now.