YOGYAKARTA - Health officials from the Group of 20 (G-20) countries have agreed to standardise Covid-19 protocols to make international travel easier through the use of a common website portal which will also be able to verify health certificates for vaccinations and test results at points of entry.

During a two-day meeting in Yogyakarta, the officials agreed to set up standard procedures for countries to facilitate mutual recognition of digital tracing applications such as Peduli Lindungi - Indonesia's equivalent of Singapore's TraceTogether - which can store information including test results and status of vaccination.

The common website portal will be used to verify the same information (test results and vaccination status) based on a QR code placed on the health certificates carried by travellers from countries that do not have digital tracing applications.

Technical teams under the auspices of the World Health Organization (WHO) would start working next month to iron out the details and the technicalities to ensure smooth implementation of these plans, Dr Maxi Rein Rondonuwu, a senior Indonesian health ministry official who chaired the meeting, said after it concluded on Tuesday (March 29).

"All nations support the effort to harmonise the global health protocols for international travel... It is very important to ensure unimpeded travel of workers and flow of global supply chains, which in turn will support the global recovery from the pandemic," said Dr Maxi.

In order to have a strong basis for digital verification, the G-20 will seek to amend the 2005 International Health Regulation, which currently does not recognise its use. Countries are currently accepting digital verification on the basis of bilateral agreements.

Indonesia will host a ministerial meeting in June that will firm up the results of the technical teams working on the results of this week's meeting, before a declaration is issued during the G-20 summit in November, said Dr Maxi.

Indonesia, which took over from Italy and assumed the G-20 presidency last December, is hosting the first of three health working groups this week, with some officials attending the meetings in person in Yogyakarta and others taking part virtually.

Delegates who attended the meeting in Yogyakarta in person this week were from, among others, Australia, Argentina, the United Kingdom, India, Japan and the WHO, while those who attended virtually included Japan, Canada, France, Italy, Russia, China and other international organisations such as the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank.

Indonesian health minister Budi Sadikin said on Monday that he expects the results of the first meeting of the G-20 health working group to be adopted worldwide.

The second working group meeting (to discuss a global health fund to support a possible future pandemic) will be in Lombok in June and the third (to promote sharing of medical research and redistribution of manufacturing hubs) will be in Bali by mid-November.

Last week, the G-20 had the energy transitions working group meeting, and the first of the meetings of finance ministers and central bank deputies was held in December.

Among Jakarta's priority issues during its presidency are strengthening the global health architecture and fostering a sustainable energy transition.