Here is how to add your Date of Birth to your Indian Vaccination Certificate for International Travel

As travel begins to open up, one of the significant concerns has been the interoperability of vaccine certificates. Surprisingly, while the USA and UK have been issuing handwritten vaccine certificates and were being largely accepted, most other nations needed to provide vaccine certificates that could be validated. Luckily for India, we had a digital platform right in the beginning (Cowin), which allowed vaccination records to be digitalized. How to change date of birth in vaccination certificate

The UK recently decided to open up to certain countries from October 4, 2021, and Indians were not very happy that India was excluded from the list of countries that could freely travel to the UK without quarantine. For that matter, India-made CoviShield, a licensed version of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, was also sent to the UK and other parts of the world under the AstraZeneca label not accepted as a vaccine validated for travel to the UK. The vaccine bit was quickly sorted out, with Covishield being put on the list. However, India has still not been put on the list of countries where travel to the UK can happen without quarantine.

Suppose you are wondering, just like some other countries. In that case, the UK is one of the biggest O&D destinations for Indians, so this affects everyone, including airlines, who would like to fly more people between India and the UK.

How to change Date of Birth in vaccination certificate

Anyhow, just like passport number integration earlier, Cowin has been working proactively to sort out issues that may come about and fix them. One of the significant gaps concerning the Indian Cowin generated certificate has been the non-presence of date of birth on the vaccination certificate, which might be a holdup for those who want to travel to the UK eventually.

So, there has been new functionality added to Cowin now, where fully-vaccinated people can now add their passport number and date of birth to their certificate and get a “Travel Certificate.”

Once you log into Cowin, you should be able to see this new option. For example, here is how it looks on my login.

How to change date of birth in vaccination certificate Once you click through, you will have to update your date of birth and passport number. I did not go through with this because I will be going for a passport renewal sooner than later, so I wanted to hold off for that. However, this is easy for anyone who will be planning to travel abroad sometime soon. Remember, if you are due for a passport number change anytime soon, better to hold off unless you will travel anytime soon.

Bottomline

If you want to know how to change date of birth in vaccination certificate, this is as simple as it gets. You update it and get a new “travel certificate” version of your certificate generated online.

Have you generated the new travel certificate on Cowin? Anything else to look out for?


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About Ajay

Ajay Awtaney is the Founder and Editor of Live From A Lounge (LFAL), a pioneering digital platform renowned for publishing news and views about aviation, hotels, passenger experience, loyalty programs, travel trends and frequent travel tips for the Global Indian. He is considered the Indian authority on business travel, luxury travel, frequent flyer miles, loyalty credit cards and travel for Indians around the globe. Ajay is a frequent contributor and commentator on the media as well, including ET Now, BBC, CNBC TV18, NDTV, Conde Nast Traveller and many other outlets.

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Comments

  1. Hello,

    My DOB is incorrect in final vaccination certificate. Date and month are incorrect but Year is correct. So when I scan the certificate it shows entire DOB which is incorrect. Online it does not give you an option to change date and month but only the year. So how to fix it? Will vaccination center be able to fix it? When I try to download the international certificate it asks for dob and passport number which I have not entered till now. So will new certificate have the dob which I enter while downloading the international certificate or the one on the final vaccine certificate? Any help is appreciated.

  2. I had already added my passport number as ID to my final vaccine certificate. At that time the certificate was issued with only my age and not d.o.b. Now when I try to rectify my certificate and add my dob, the portal says that this particular passport number has already been used and it doesn’t add my dob. So this is an error in the current Cowin portal that needs to be sorted out. So even for international travel, my certificate only has my passport number and age, but no DOB. And this is a problem being faced by all those who had earlier opted to add their passport number instead of Aadhaar or any other id.

  3. Would be great if I could put my picture instead of modiji’s. It causes a lot of confusion for border agents who don’t know who he is. Sitting and explaining why I have someone else’s picture on my vaccination document while they Google who he is, is just silly

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