The Western Cape Department of Health has received numerous requests for certification of vaccination status, for travel purposes. Though we try to accommodate requests as far as possible, we appeal to the public to not apply for special vaccination verification as a matter of routine. According to the current agreement nationally, the official vaccination card and the SMS that follows your vaccination serve as proof of vaccination .
In the absence of a national electronic or official system in place the Western Cape currently tries to assist persons who were vaccinated in the province through manually processing applications under urgent and exceptional circumstances, which include travel for work or study purpose, medical or compassionate reasons. The application should be emailed to dohvaccination.support@westerncape.gov.za and must be accompanied by official, written verification from the travel agent/embassy to state that this is a travel requirement. As we currently can only issue a letter of verification, the travel agent/embassy should also advise if this letter is adequate for the country of travel, as we cannot offer more until the national process is resolved.
Persons requiring verification should apply at least five working days in advance to avoid any disappointment. However, due to the current manual process, we will not be able to accommodate all requests (e.g. leisure travel, lost vaccination cards, back-up to vaccination cards, etc). These are deemed as non-exceptional circumstances and are becoming unmanageable.
We ask the public for their support while we await a permanent resolution from the National Department of Health.
