Ethiopia’s ministry of health has announced that starting June 7, all travelers exiting, entering or transiting through Ethiopia to all destinations shall be expected to present a digital negative COVID-19 certificate.

The certificates shall be presented at all ports of entry based on the Africa Union’s Trusted Travel guidelines, and the UNDP-sponsored Global Haven Program.

“This is as a result of the continued surge of COVID-19 cases in some parts of the world and the need to strengthen health screening at Ethiopian borders for the long-term biosecurity of the country.” Health minister Lia Tadesse said.

The ministry also stated that paper certificates shall cease to be acceptable and only AU Trusted Travel or Global Haven COVID-19 test certificates shall be allowed for exit, transit and entry purposes from July 1.

This has been necessitated by an increase of fake health documents and rising incidents of forgery detected since the onset of the pandemic.

The ministry also added that in the country, all authorized RT PCR COVID-19 testing laboratories have already been registered on the African Union TT system.

Airlines have as well been instructed to pre-validate all test results and certificates used for travel purposes before boarding travelers bound for Ethiopia.

Ethiopia has thus far registered 272,246 positive coronavirus cases and 4,185 deaths.