MALAYSIA’S Immunitee Health Passport has partnered with Temasek-founded Affinidi to become Malaysia’s first health passport to be accepted into Singapore through Affinidi’s Unifier digital credential platform as part of a global pilot programme.
The Immunitee Health Passport is a system designed to store personal immunisation records and vaccine data with the Unifier platform providing inter-operability to securely share the necessary data with the various national health check systems being put in place globally.
Such digitally verifiable health credentials are designed to give travellers a pleasant and hassle-free experience when travelling during the pandemic in addition to be easily verified at Singapore airport once the borders are reopened.
More broadly, Immunitee Health Passport will allow consumers and authorities to:
- Facilitate clearance at border health checkpoints
- Ensure data protection and security through blockchain
- Verify the authenticity of COVID-19 tests and vaccines
“The future of travel in a COVID-19 world means that travellers will be required to show proof of COVID-19 testing as well as a vaccination history, of which the Immunitee Health Passport provides an end-to-end platform for users,” Immunitee CEO Datuk Dr Nick Boden pointed out.
“The sheer scale of the COVID-19 vaccination drive means that in an extremely short period of time, systems need to be put into place that are cheap, accurate and can work on existing infrastructure.”
Immunitee stores all patient data on a public blockchain system, ensuring that data cannot be “scraped”, is protected, and belongs to the user.
Government authorities and other organisations which include national healthcare systems, immigration systems, hotels, universities and schools can only access information by scanning a secure QR Code that contains all the relevant testing and vaccination information.
The authorities and other organisations have no other access to any confidential information and there is no location tracking.
Vaccine tracking and tracing
Additionally, Immunitee also works with recognised laboratories to automatically store users’ test history on the blockchain by implementing a secure vaccine tracking and tracing programme to ensure that the vaccine is both authentic and has been stored at the right temperature.
This verification is done within the Immunitee app where the vaccine is scanned by the user before it is administered. Only vaccines that have been registered and tracked on the Immunitee system can be given.
“Vaccines have been developed at ‘breakneck’ speeds and are being supplied to governments and the private sector,” justified Dr Boden.
“It is important to ensure that the cold chain and vaccine management systems are in place to ensure proper traceability and authenticity. Patient safety and the ability to track adverse events are an essential part of the roll out.”
Towards this end, Immunitee’s clinical partner is Qualitas, one of the leading primary healthcare providers in Malaysia as well as across the Asia-Pacific region with a network of over 250 clinics.
Moreover, Immunitee also works with laboratory partners Clinipath and Gribbles, Malaysia’s most trusted providers of diagnostic laboratory services.
Scheduled to launch in March 2021, Immunitee will be provided as an open-source system at no charge to governments and organisations around the world.
Once launched, users will need to download the Immunitee app for free. Premium services such as the Health Passport can be subscribed to within the app should users wish to use the passport to travel.
This will allow travel bubbles to open – negating the need to quarantine – as information will be verified electronically in the blockchain. – Feb 10, 2021