No stamp? Health Minister says vaccination centres will stamp vaccine books

Since there are some people who received their COVID-19 vaccines but their vaccination ‘blue books’ do not have the official stamp printed on them, Minister of Health Dr. Frank Anthony says that people can go to local vaccination centres to get those books stamped.

The new COVID-19 regulations, issued on Tuesday night, explicitly state that any hardcopy or digital proof of vaccination must have the official stamp of the applicable country affixed on them.

But, many people have since complained that they received vaccination cards at local vaccination sites that did not have the official stamp printed. These concerns were raised with Dr. Anthony at the sidelines of an event on Wednesday.

In response, Dr. Anthony said, “They can come into vaccination centres and get it stamped once it is authentic.”

The authenticity of some unstamped books have been called into question since individuals have been caught with blank, unstamped ‘COVID-19 books’ and several people have been illegally obtaining, forging and selling these blank booklets.

It is unclear whether this prompted the government’s decision to institute this requirement for stamped booklets but Dr. Anthony said previously that the local authorities were exploring ways of curbing the forgery of these vaccine booklets.

When asked how the health officials at the vaccination sites will verify the authenticity of the unstamped books, Dr. Anthony said that those officials would be able to return to the vaccination records and verify that somebody was indeed vaccinated.

“…  If they have any suspicion, they can go back and check,” Dr. Anthony emphasised.

Previously, however, the News Room found that the paper-based system of record-keeping has made it difficult for retrieving information to verify whether people were indeed vaccinated.