The World Health Organisation (WHO) has allowed governments to impose mandatory COVID-19 vaccination as the world faces the threat of a new variant, Omicron, but warned that they must exhaust all measures to encourage voluntary inoculation.
The Omicron variant was recently detected in South Africa and Botswana, but is yet to be recorded in Zimbabwe.
In a recent audio clip, WHO head of health emergencies programme Mike Ryan said governments that wished to impose mandatory vaccination should avail the relevant information on the pandemic to enable informed choices.
“Our position in WHO is that mandatory vaccination should be only considered when the health gain that you are going to get from that is very clear and you have tried all other measures to get people vaccinated,” Ryan said.
“I still personally believe that the best way is to continue engaging with people and to continue to drive the idea of an informed choice, but there are circumstances in which the threat to society, the threat to the health system, and the threat to the economy is such that governments, having tried all other measures are able to make that
decision.
“This raises real issues around human rights and it’s something that governments should consider carefully, and they need to be sure that the benefits of doing this outweighs the risks and that they have done everything possible to address vaccine hesitancy and other issues, and they feel that they have no other alternative.”
He said the objective of vaccination was to protect society, adding that there should be reasons for that action to be taken, including dialogue with stakeholders and communities.
