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Data sharing, common health standards key to ASEAN pandemic response: Ministers
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Virus control: Visitors are required to use the PeduliLindungi app to enter public spaces as part of government efforts to combat COVID-19. (Kompas.com/Garry Lotulung)
D
ata sharing and universal health standards are key to building regional resilience against the threat of another pandemic, ASEAN health ministers said, as fears over a third wave of COVID-19 infections loom over the region.
Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said ASEAN should implement standardized health and travel protocols across the region to ensure uniformity in quarantine protocols, as well as vaccine and testing requirements.
“We need to copy the innovation of passports for immigration [and use it for] passports for health,” he said at a public forum organized by EVYD Knowledge Hub, the Brunei government and Temasek Foundation on Wednesday.
He added that at least ASEAN should have a standard platform, further suggesting that with such an integrated tool, Singapore’s TraceTogether app could be linked to Indonesia’s PeduliLindungi app. Both are tracing apps used for COVID-19 surveillance efforts. Other ASEAN countries also have their own tracing apps, such as Malaysia’s MySejahtera and Brunei’s BruHealth.
“If [a Singaporean visitor] wants to enter an Indonesian mall, they can use TraceTogether, and I would be able to enter a Singapore hotel with PeduliLindungi. Technology can be used to standardize health protocols, like [how] we standardized passports for immigration,” Budi said.
Read also: Indonesia is now relying on a COVID-19 app, but does it actually work
Indonesia proposed the idea of an ASEAN-wide travel corridor for essential travel as early as last year, but countries are still working on a common approach to verifying vaccine certificates with other member states. Indonesia is leading this effort at the working group level.
