People who took the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and are travelling to Luxembourg, Switzerland and France have been asked to contact the health authorities to have their digital COVID certificate re-issued.
Times of Malta recently reported that those who took the single dose jab here were having trouble using their passport in other EU countries.
Official apps in France, Belgium and Luxembourg, which are used to verify the COVID certificates through a scan of the QR code, were reading them as invalid. This was happening in Switzerland as well.
The Health Ministry’s technical team explored the issue and a spokesperson has now reassured those who have taken the J&J vaccine that all EU countries, except for two member states and Switzerland, recognise the certificate issued in Malta.
France, Luxembourg and Switzerland verifier applications are having trouble reading the code name assigned to the vaccine, she said.
“A solution has been found regarding this issue. Those individuals who have taken Johnson and Johnson and have a vaccine certificate and are travelling to these countries, may contact 145 or covid-certificate@gov.mt to have their certificate re-issued,” she said, adding there is no need to do this for other countries.
However, yesterday a handful of J&J jab certificate holders had their vaccine document rejected when scanned by Belgium, Latvia and Austria government applications.
“What have they solved?” asked Steve Abela, who became aware of the problem when he was denied access to venues in France while on holiday.
Petr Liska, a Czech national, said that after reprinting his certificate on Saturday afternoon, it was now being accepted by Austrian, Belgian, Slovak, Czech and German government applications.
“It seems like the issue is resolved for some countries when the certificate is reprinted, but not all,” he noted.
The health ministry spokesperson said the authorities were working with the French technical team to solve other problems occurring with the French verifier application.
“Other EU member states have experienced similar issues and these have all been solved,” she said.
The spokesperson pointed out there that are bound to be teething problems with the so-called green passports, and member states were collaborating “to fine-tune the process”.