COVID-19 has been around for more than 16 months since the first case was reported in China sometime in November 2019.

As a result, it brought the world’s economies, including medical tourism in Malaysia, to a standstill with sales of RM 1.7 billion in 2019.

The Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council forecast 2018 sales of RM 2.8 billion by 2020. However, with the outbreak of the pandemic, the loss was inevitable.

Malaysia has started vaccinating frontliners since February and will soon move into the second phase of high risk vaccination and finally from August for the rest of the citizens and other residents of that country. It is time to prepare to prepare vaccination records for our citizens who will start vaccinating soon.

The Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Khairy Jamalludin, recently announced that discussions are being held with China and Singapore about the recognition of our digital certificate.

The vaccination record should not only be limited to vaccination, but also to the latest Covid-19 test carried out prior to travel, which provides options for the public and incoming medical tourists in case they have not been vaccinated.

Our concern is the introduction and recognition of digital vaccination passports for international patients who intend to visit Malaysia for medical tourism as there were vaccination programs in many Asean countries before Malaysia.

The Covid-19 pandemic has increased awareness of maximizing our digital potential.

The health sector recognizes the work needed to build a digital infrastructure that builds trust in patients, especially medical tourists, and illustrates security both physically and digitally.

One of these areas in the digital structure is a system of digital passports that provide evidence of vaccination against Covid-19.

Blockchain technology would be an ideal solution for implementing such a system, especially a decentralized blockchain ledger that offers anonymity, immutability and, above all, transparency.

We strongly suggest that the government begin implementing such a system immediately.

First of all, we need generally defined standards for the functioning of a digital vaccination record that can be easily adopted and adapted by other countries.

Starting regionally would be the best option to test and implement the pass within Asean first and this will serve both medical and commercial tourism.

On site, everyone involved must work together and create the prerequisites for this system from a regulatory point of view in order to reconcile the prioritization of security and the reopening of the economies.

Scalability must also be considered in data storage to accommodate the country’s population and incoming patients.

Private hospitals and other related bodies want the Department of Health to play an important role as a regulator, particularly in establishing the authenticity of information on health vaccinations.

Our suggestion would be to start medical tourism this way once a large group of our citizens have been vaccinated but not until the end of the vaccination program as it will further delay economic recovery.

With that in mind, imagine a blockchain-enabled Covid-19 registry with the information that is on a distributed ledger system specifically for Asean.

It acts as the sole source of portable and verifiable truths and backbone for various other health apps, tools, and interventions in development by government and private institutions for local and international patients.

Through the power of the data, it can support targeted Covid-19 public health interventions and strategically revitalize the economy and boost the economy in an informed manner.

The benefits of this technology will help project Malaysia’s aspirations to transform our nation into a digitally driven, high-income nation and a regional leader in the digital economy, and will restart booming medical tourism like 2019.

Dr. Kuljit Singh is President of the Association of Private Hospitals Malaysia. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com

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