Europe's deep tech company, Guardtime has announced that Estonia, Hungary and Iceland are the first countries to sign up to VaccineGuard, its newly developed COVID-19 vaccination platform.

VaccineGuard will facilitate vaccination certificate interoperability and pharmacovigilance and claims to employ privacy and security features to protect patients and sensitive information. 

AstraZeneca Estonia will participate in VaccineGuard's product testing to enable a feedback loop between manufacturer, care provider, citizen and public-health authorities.

Built on KSI technology, the product is based on a six-month collaboration with the Estonian Government and World Health Organisation with additional governments expected to join the pilot network in the near future.

WHY IT MATTERS

VaccineGuard will be adopted by national health authorities to link data on vaccinations and authentic vaccines across multiple systems which are key to the delivery of the COVID-19 vaccination programme.

The solution also hopes to enable global travel through the process.

Jüri Ratas, the prime minister of Estonia said: “The pandemic has shown the world that in crisis we need to have a global anchor of trust like the WHO. The World Health Organisation can play a critical positive role in global digital health governance. Our pilot project presents an extraordinary opportunity for the Estonian community to help the world in the fight against COVID-19."

THE LARGER CONTEXT

Recently in Israel, the single vaccine dose was described as 'less effective than we thought' and lower than Pfizer had suggested by Israel's coronavirus czar, Nachman Ash. 

Last week it was reported that Israel had committed to sending Pfizer statistical data and details in exchange for COVID-19 vaccine doses.

In the Middle East, the Kingdom of Bahrain has made significant strides in providing technology to facilitate the vaccination programme. The country has launched a number of mobile COVID-19 vaccination units dedicated to immunising senior citizens and individuals with special needs.

Bahrain has also become the first country to allow vaccine appointments via mobile.

ON THE RECORD

Ain Aaviksoo, chief medical officer, Guardtime said: “We are delighted that Iceland, Estonia, and Hungary have agreed to pilot our new platform. These countries have been among the most proactive and most successful in developing state of the art tools and strategies for addressing Coronavirus, and we look forward to working with them on this project and sharing the findings with other countries and stakeholders to get soon back to normalcy.

"VaccineGuard will provide proof of critical data accuracy, from verifying the vaccine against authentic vaccine data repository, managing and monitoring compliance with national and local mandates on distribution and administration to priority groups for inoculation, to patient verification and eligibility, and real-time updates to health authorities, giving them better insight into the vaccination program progress and success.

"It will deliver automated aggregated reports from vaccination sites, automated monitoring of stock and vaccinations, and provide the ability to facilitate adverse effect reporting, supporting investigations around this more quickly.

"Guardtime is an integral part of the Estonian Government’s recent offer to WHO and its member states to share its experience and that of its key companies in healthcare digitisation that use distributed information architecture and interoperability, and how this could be used in the fight against COVID-19."