Kenya has launched the Trusted Travel digital tool for COVID-19 test result verification, based on the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) Trusted Travel platform, becoming the first country to adopt the platform for managing travels during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last year, the African Union officially launched the Trusted Travel platform as part of the overall Trusted Travel Initiative during a joint ministerial meeting of the ministers of health, transport, and information and communication of African Union Member States.
Developed by PanaBIOS Consortium and Econet Group as a public-private partnership with Africa CDC, Trusted Travel is a top-class digital solution to support Member States in verifying COVID-19 test certificates for travellers and to help harmonize entry and exit screening across the continent.
The platform provides information on travel requirements at the departure and destination ports and access to a list of government approved laboratories for COVID-19 testing in African countries.
It allows travellers to upload their COVID-19 test results online for easy verification by port health and travel officials and helps in the detection of forged certificates. This in turn will help establish trust and confidence in test results among government authorities, airlines, transport services operators and other stakeholders in the transport sector across the continent.
In a statement by the Africa CDC, Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for the Ministry of Health, Mutahi Kagwe says, “The ministry has collaborated with the African Union and Africa CDC, with technical support from PanaBIOS to implement an online system to authenticate and verify laboratory test certificates for travellers.”
Below is the full statement:
