The World Health Organization’s (WHO) Emergency Committee has maintained its stance that proof of vaccination against coronavirus should not be required for international travel, amid a growing debate into blocking the entry of travellers if they are unvaccinated.

The independent experts said that vaccinations should not be the only condition to permit international travel, given limited global access and inequitable distribution of Covid-19 vaccines. WHO’s Emergency Committee has also warned that new concerning variants of Covid-19 were expected to spread around the world, making it even harder to halt the pandemic.

“The pandemic is nowhere near finished,” the committee said in a statement, highlighting “the strong likelihood for the emergence and global spread of new and possibly more dangerous variants of concern that may be even more challenging to control.”