COVID-19 vaccines under the International Health Regulations – We must use the WHO International Certificate of Vaccination or Prophylaxis
Eskild Petersen, Daniel R. Lucey, Lucille Blumberg, Laura D. Kramer, Seif Al-Abri, Shui Shan Lee, Tatiana Castro Abreu Pinto, Christina W. Obiero, Alfonso J. Rodríguez‐Morales, Richard B. Yapi, Aisha Abubakar, Paul Anantharajah Tambyah, Alison Holmes, Lin H. Chen
Abstract
The \nfirst vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 have now received \nemergency use authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug \nAdministration (FDA), European Medicines Agency (EMA) and \nnational authorities in China, India, UK, and Russia; and are rapidly \nbeing distributed in more than 30 countries since the end of the \n2020. So far vaccines are being used by the respective countries \nafter national approval based on promising efficacy reports and \nsafety data, however, data on some of these vaccines have not yet \nbeen published in international peer-reviewed journals. The World \nHealth Organization (WHO) has a role in “pre-qualifying” COVID \nvaccines, but WHO pre-qualification may not be necessary to \nrecord the use of immunization or prophylaxis in WHO Interna- \ntional Certificate of Vaccination or Prophylaxis (ICVP, aka Carte \nJaune or Yellow Card) as this has not been the case with other \nvaccines which may not be WHO prequalified. Every dose of any \nCOVID vaccine should be entered in the WHO Yellow Card.