It’s our best shot for travel. Have you been in Africa, South/Central America or the Caribbean in the last 6 days? Yes. Have you visited any of these countries? Yes. Proceed to an officer for manual processing. Argh.
Anybody who routinely visits Africa is well versed on the above procedure at the self-service immigration machines. The next step usually involves a confused looking Border Force staff member trying to figure out what the little yellow book is. More often than not, they’ll give up and not even bother opening it, sending you off to the Quarantine inspector who forces the “one legged dance” as they inspect the bottom of your RMs.
The little yellow book, of course, is your International Certificate of Vaccination and has been around since 1935. For most of us, the critical vaccination is for Yellow Fever and it’s been a requirement for entry to many countries for decades. It is routinely checked (in fact, mine was inspected no less than seven times when departing Entebbe for Doha a few years ago) and has simply become operations normal for travel to many countries across the world.
Vaccination has long been an accepted part of travel, particularly to the developing world. The Covid-19 vaccination is simply going to become part of the travel process. There is no end to the ethical discussions of private companies (i.e. airlines) and your own government forcing vaccines upon its citizens. The simple fact of the matter is that airlines cannot force you to be vaccinated, but they choose not to carry you as a passenger. Similarly, a foreign government can put as many restrictions as they choose on alien arrivals. I cannot envisage a world anytime soon where travel will not equal a requirement to show proof of vaccination at virtually all border crossings.
For the time being, most African nations are relying on PCR testing prior to allowing entry. This does frustratingly increase costs and complexities (especially for trips covering multiple countries), however I expect that this will be replaced with a vaccination check in future. Uganda, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe already have policies in place that differentiate vaccinated from unvaccinated travellers. Hopefully that will expand over the coming months as Australians begin to travel again. Until then, get the vaccination passport ready to go; It’s Our Best Shot for Travel.
Keeping abreast of restrictions will be challenging for the near future, so we’ve developed a document that outlines some of the entry requirements for our most popular destinations and transit points. Be sure to keep an eye on it as it’s updated. Of course, a great source of information is always Smart Traveller.
Updated: 20 December 2021
There are currently numerous travel restrictions for entry from and transits to/from Southern Africa. These are expected to be temporary. We will update travel advise once more concrete information comes to hand
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