CoWIN Certificate to Show Date of Birth of Fully Vaccinated Travelling Abroad

The issue of international acceptance of COVID vaccine certificates has become a controversy. Image used for representational purposes. 

(Photo: Shruti Mathur/ The Quint)

National Health Authority (NHA) chief Dr RS Sharma on Saturday, 25 September, said that those who have taken two doses of COVID-19 vaccine and want to travel abroad will have their date of birth written in full on the CoWIN certificate.

This comes after the United Kingdom failed to recognise Indians vaccinated with 'Covishield' as fully vaccinated.

Speaking to news agency ANI, Dr Sharma said:

"As the world is slowly opening up for business and travel, we are working continuously to ensure that international travellers can travel stress-free. This new feature and the format of date of birth will be in 'yyyy-mm-dd' format, as per the WHO standards for international travellers."

He added that those travelling abroad can download updated version of their vaccine certificate from CoWIN.

The UK Travel Advisory Row

A day after controversy erupted, the United Kingdom on 22 September, updated its travel guidelines to include Serum Institute of India (SII)-manufactured Covishield in its list of recognised vaccines. However, India does not feature in a list of countries mentioned by the UK where vaccination from the relevant public health body would count as an individual being vaccinated.

Speaking to news agency PTI, an official from the British High Commission in India, addressed criticism against the new guidelines, stating:

“We are engaging with the Government of India to explore how we could expand the UK recognition of vaccine certification to people vaccinated by a relevant public health body in India," the High Commission said, earlier this week.

A vaccine certificate should have the following details, the UK government said:

• Forename and surname(s)

• Date of birth

• Vaccine brand and manufacturer

• Date of vaccination for every dose

• Country or territory of vaccination and/or certificate issuer

"If your document from a public health body does not include all of these, you must follow the non-vaccinated rules," their official statement read.

(With inputs from ANI)