Go slow on mandatory Covid-19 vaccination

Government, through the Health Ministry, has tabled before Parliament a Bill to amend the Public Health Act to, among others; include provisions to penalise all those who refuse to get vaccinated against Covid-19.

If passed into law, once found culpable, one will be jailed for up to six months or fined up to Shs4m or both.

Some of the reasons advanced to justify the bid to amend the Public Health Act are that the current law does not cater for emerging diseases like Covid-19, HIV/Aids, Marburg, and Ebola among other life threatening illnesses.

The government also reasons that the amendment is important since the highest fine in the current law is Shs2,000, which is on a very low side and needs to be revised.

Latest statistics on those vaccinated as given by Health minister Jane Ruth Aceng show that so far 14,054,059 people have been vaccinated with the first dose while 7,924,329 are fully vaccinated and 20,758 have received booster doses. Those targeted are about 22 million.

As government moves to enact the law to penalise all those who won’t heed to vaccination, we still struggle to have sufficient vaccination centres to handle the huge numbers of those willing to be vaccinated and also in some cases, the doses have run out.

If passed into law, clause 24 of the Bill empowers KCCA or any local government council or any person dully authorised to restrict access to public services without proof of a vaccination form. Such public places include; public transport, hospitals, schools, government institutions among others.

As much as vaccination is necessary to reduce on Covid-19 infections, hospitalisation and even deaths, we should go slow on making it mandatory. This is because forceful vaccination goes against the spirit of democracy where citizens should be allowed to make choices. Article 21 of the Constitution on equality and freedom from discrimination; demands that all persons are equal before and under the law in all spheres of political, economic, social and cultural life and in every other respect and shall enjoy equal protection of the law.

Medically, there is a principle of “informed consent” by the patient. This principle demands that a patient has to make their own free decisions about their medical care including vaccination.

It is also worth noting that following the full reopening of the economy earlier this year, the infection rates have dropped by 75 percent against the fears of the health experts that the infections would sharply rise upon full reopening of the economy, therefore, perhaps mandatory vaccination is not be as urgent right now.

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