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 The WHO's Emergency Committee, composed of 19 independent experts,
held its sixth meeting in a year as the global death toll from the
pandemic reached two million among more than 90 million cases.
The experts issued a series of recommendations, which WHO
Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus accepted and sent to the
U.N. agency's 194 member states, a statement said.
"At the present time, do not introduce requirements of proof of
vaccination or immunity for international travel as a condition of
entry as there are still critical unknowns regarding the efficacy of
vaccination in reducing transmission and limited availability of
vaccines," the WHO panel said.
"Proof of vaccination should not exempt international travellers
from complying with other travel risk reduction measures."
Didier Houssin, panel chairman, said that there was currently a
"great disparity" among countries about testing, quarantines and
travel bans, leading to the world being "a little bit paralysed, a
little bit confused".
Its advice to WHO was to "take a strong lead in order to produce
clear guidance and scientifically based guidance about how best to
facilitate and permit the circulation of people in a safe manner by
air, by sea", he told a news conference.
Mike Ryan, WHO's top emergency expert, said: "What the committee is
saying is 'at this present time', scientific evidence is not
complete, there isn't enough vaccine and therefore we shouldn't do
that now and create an unnecessary restriction to travel.
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 "So we are trying to protect
the travel space and ensure economies are not
entirely isolated," he added.
Britain is tightening border controls from
Monday to block new variants of COVID-19,
suspending all "travel corridor" arrangements
that had meant arrivals from some countries did
not require quarantine.
The WHO panel urged countries to monitor virus
variants such as those identified by Britain and
South Africa to assess the effects on the
efficacy of vaccines, drugs and diagnostic
tests.
It called for promoting technology transfer to
low- and middle-income countries with the
potential capacity to accelerate global
production of COVID-19 vaccines.
Further research was also needed on "critical
unknowns about COVID-19 vaccination efficacy on
transmission, duration of protection against
severe disease and asymptomatic infection" as
well as the duration of immunity following
infection or vaccination, and protection after a
single dose, the panel said.
(Additional reporting by Emma Farge; writing by
Stephanie Nebehay; editing by Nick Macfie)
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