A Chinese lawmaker said he will submit a proposal to the upcoming two sessions that a mutual vaccines recognition system should be established within the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area which will allow the vaccines listed in Hong Kong and Macao to be used in nine mainland cities within the Greater Bay Area.

Cai Weiping, the chief expert from the infectious disease center of the eighth peoples hospital affiliated with Guangzhou Medical University and a deputy to the National People Congress, China's top legislature, told thepaper.cn that such a system will meet the health and medical needs of cross-region workers and promote the construction of a "healthy Greater Bay Area."

Due to difference in vaccine schemes and management systems among Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, residents who come from the SARs but work and live in Guangdong, roughly about 538,000, always face difficulties when it comes to vaccination. Data also showed that some 70 percent of the interviewees from the mainland cities are also willing to receive vaccines in Hong Kong and Macao, according to Cai.

The mutual vaccines recognition system would allow vaccines widely used in Hong Kong and Macao to be included in non-immunization program of the Greater Bay Area, thereby establishing a new policy regarding sharing vaccination within the area, Cai said. Special vaccination sites for Hong Kong and Macao vaccines can be set up in nine mainland cities in the Greater Bay Area to allow residents to get vaccinated.

The vaccination information system on different categories of vaccines should also be connected so as to make sure vaccinated residents do not need to get another type of vaccine after moving to a different city within the Greater Bay Area, Cai said, noting this will prevent vaccination from become a hinderance to people to study or work in the bay area more conveniently.

Global Times