Updated 5.55pm
Holders of a Maltese vaccine certificate will now be able to travel to more countries without restrictions, after travel rules were modified by health authorities.
Travellers could already use their Maltese-issued vaccine certificate when returning from countries on Malta's amber list, which was expanded on Tuesday to include Israel and 40 US states.
Vaccine certificate holders can now also return from 27 other countries that are currently on Malta's red list, following publication of a separate legal notice.
Those countries are: Belarus, Belize, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bhutan, Fiji, Jamaica, Georgia, Faroe Islands, Kosovo, Kazakhstan, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Moldova, Vietnam, Egypt, Iran, Libya, Panama, Qatar, Cuba, Russia, Serbia, Taiwan, Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Saudi Arabia.
For now, only Maltese vaccine certificates will be recognised as valid upon arrival in Malta.
The changes mean those with a Maltese vaccine certificate can travel to these countries and then return to the island without undergoing COVID-19 tests.
Given that the 27 additional countries are on Malta's red list, travel effectively remains barred to anyone flying in from them who does not have a Malta-issued certificate.
That is not the case for other nations on the amber list. Travellers from amber list countries can enter Malta, subject to COVID-19 test requirements.
The authorities said they will update the list from time to time.
Malta's vaccine certificate system is not yet ready to be integrated into an EU-wide system that will officially launch on July and is currently classified as being in a "test phase".
The decision to allow Maltese residents with a vaccine certificate to return from Serbia and North Macedonia will be welcomed by thousands living and working in Malta who have been petitioning the authorities to let them visit home.
Serbian and Macedonian nationals had argued it was “nonsense” to keep the two countries off the safe travel lists “when the number of COVID-19 infections is extremely low”.
Maltese residents from these countries will now be able travel to their home countries and return to Malta by presenting their valid Maltese-issued vaccine certificate.
Just last week, Malta's public health chief Charmaine Gauci had justified banning travel to the two Balkan nations, insisting that neither country was on an EU council list of countries recommended for exemptions from travel restrictions.
Correction June 15: A previous version stated that Malta would be accepting foreign-issued vaccine certificates.