Kigali, 15 April, 2021- Minister of Infrastructure, Hon. Claver Gatete joined other African Union Ministers responsible for Air Transport in an extra-ordinary virtual meeting which discussed the issue of vaccine passport and its implication to the African air transport.

Ministers in charge of Air Transport adopted the call for accelerated action following the idea of “vaccine passports” which is currently gaining traction among governments and industries looking for a way out of shutdowns, curfews and travel bans.

They found that Vaccination should not be a pre-requisite for international travel which would discriminate against those individuals who are not able to get vaccinated due to unavailability of vaccines and other medical reasons or who are unwilling to do so due to ethical or other concerns.

Participants to the meeting welcomed the initiative by African Leaders to expand vaccine manufacturing to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically H.E Paul Kagame, President of the Republic of Rwanda, call for vaccine equity; "Vaccine equity cannot be guaranteed by goodwill alone, as we have seen many examples to convince all of us. Africa needs to expand production capacity for vaccines and other essential medical products." and H.E Félix Antoine Tshisekedi, President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, for his support to the Partnership for African Vaccine Manufacturing (PAVM).

Following the ICAO’s report on the Economic Impact Analysis of COVID-19 as at 10th March 2021, the COVID-19 impact on African Civil aviation industry can be summarized as follows: 39 million international passengers carried in 2020 against 74 million in 2019 and 15 million passengers carried on domestic routes in 2020 against 41 million in 2019.