Zimbabwe rolled out the voluntary vaccination programme
throughout the country this week, with health workers and other frontline
workers given the first priority.
Vice-President and Health minister Constantino Chiwenga
last Thursday became the first Zimbabwean to be inoculated with the
Chinese-donated Sinopharm vaccine.
The southern African country last Monday received 200 000
doses of the vaccine and Charamba yesterday said the Asian giant had doubled
its donation to 400 000 doses.
According to Finance minister Mthuli Ncube, Zimbabwe
expects to receive another 600 000 doses of the same vaccine early next month
purchased by government. Government said it had planned to buy up to 1,8
million doses of the Chinese vaccine.
However, there has been a low turnout by health workers at
most health centres throughout the country, with some saying they were unsure
of the efficacy of the donated vaccine.
Charamba posted on his @Jamwanda2 Twitter handle that if
persuasion failed on voluntary vaccination, then government, which has
maintained that the programme would be voluntary, according to the Public
Health Act, would force people to be vaccinated.
“Generally, government takes the view of persuasion as a
weapon of first instance. Only when that fails does it ratchet up pressure
through coercion, especially where minors are involved. You can’t condemn an
age that can’t decide to die or take hazards of dying,” Charamba tweeted on
Tuesday.
Charamba could not be reached for comment yesterday to
clarify his remarks. But human rights doctors said government risked
contravening section 52 the Constitution on health rights if it orders
compulsory vaccination.
They said citizens lacked adequate information to make
informed decisions on whether to be vaccinated or not.
Responding to Charamba, a human rights doctor, Shingai
Feresu, said an order for compulsory vaccination was a violation of human
rights. “Let me be clear here,” he tweeted yesterday.
“I don’t see the rationale of compulsory vaccination. As a
human rights advocate, this would be a violation of the highest degree. Only
when the situation is dire (do) you invoke the Public Health Act. With deaths
around 10 per day for a population of 15 million, you can’t invoke it.”
Zimbabwe Nurses Association (ZiNA) president Enock Dongo
said the general assessment showed that there was low uptake of the vaccine
among nurses throughout the country as at yesterday.
“Health workers lack the necessary information,” he said. “There
are several conspiracy theories against vaccines on social media and health
workers are also consumers of that information, hence factual information was
essential to dismiss misleading information.
“Government failed to avail the necessary information to
the frontline workers and the public prior the commencement of the inoculation
process. Government does not want to engage workers’ representatives who play
an important role in positive influence on policy implementation.”
Health workers were only trained on how to administer the
drug when it was already in the country. Government has revealed it is also
expecting delivery of additional vaccines from Russia (Sputnik V),
British-Swedish firm AstraZeneca and China (Sinovac), but has not fully
explained to the population on what motivated its decisions, with
investigations by our sister paper The Standard revealing that the broke
Zimbabwe could have been lured into shady COVID-19 vaccination deals with
manufacturers who were offering free doses as bait.
Itai Rusike, executive director for the Community Working
Group on Health, said if government was considering mandatory COVID-19
vaccination for frontline workers, the decision should be guided by the Public
Health Act.
Chapter 15:17 of the Public Health Act provides for
compulsory immunisation of children and incapacitated persons where there are
compelling reasons of public health.
“What the government of Zimbabwe should do is to provide
the frontline health workers and the people of Zimbabwe the options to choose
the vaccine brands of their choice instead of foisting the Chinese Sinopharm
vaccine to everyone,” Rusike said.
“According to the Public Health Act, the government has a
duty to respect fundamental human rights and freedoms. The State, every person,
including jurist persons, every institution and agency of the government at
every level must respect, protect, promote and fulfil the rights and freedoms.”
Zimbabwe Senior Hospital Doctors Association president
Shingai Nyaguse, however, said the turnout of health personnel for vaccination
was “good”, considering that it was just the beginning of the programme.
Days before the Chinese vaccine arrived into the country,
Health ministry acting permanent secretary Robert Mudyirandima was quoted as
saying that during the rollout, tests would be done to measure the vaccines’
effectiveness on current mutations, variants and strains.
This forced human rights lawyers to petition government
demanding that Zimbabweans should not be used as guinea pigs.
In a letter to Mnangagwa dated February 16, Mbidzo,
Muchadehama and Makoni Legal Practitioners said they were worried that the
bodily or psychological integrity of individuals, which includes the right not
to be subjected to medical or scientific experiments, was being violated.
But government has since distanced itself from
Mudyirandima’s utterances.
“We act on behalf of the Ministry of Health and Child Care
and wish to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated February 16, 2021 which
was copied to us,” Fortune Chimbaru, director for civil division in the Health
ministry, said in a statement yesterday.
“Our instruction so far is that the alleged statement by
the acting permanent secretary of Health does not reflect the official
government position and is not accurate pronouncement of the development
process of the said vaccine.
“The correct and official procurements relating to the
vaccine were made by the (Health) minister (Chiwenga), the deputy minister
(John Mangwiro) and the ambassador of the People’s Republic of China.” Newsday
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