The Zimbabwean government says it intends to make vaccination compulsory for all business operators in the country and President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Saturday said no-one in the country will escape vaccination.
Mnangagwa’s government is panicking over soaring Covid-19 cases and wants all workers and operators of both large and small businesses to be vaccinated or close shop.
The southern African country on Saturday received 500,000 Sinopharm vaccine doses from China, with another 7-million expected by the end of August. It is using both Sinopharm and Sinovac from China, the Sputnik vaccine from Russia and the AstraZeneca vaccine from India.
Last week the country of 15-million people recorded close to 4,500 new infections and more than 60 deaths from the pandemic, but observers say the official figures are understated as cases go unreported because patients shun the unreliable public hospitals.
Johannes Marisa, president of the Medical and Dental Private Practitioners Association, said the rising infections in rural areas were compounding the latest outbreak and was cause for concern as there are areas with few or no health facilities.
Like neighbouring countries in the region, Zimbabwe is battling a third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic with infections and deaths mounting in the past few weeks.
Owing to the ailing state of the country’s public hospitals, the government is pinning all hopes on the vaccines to contain the virus, with the Treasury saying it has budgeted US$100m to purchase the medicines.
Last week, the county’s largest referral hospital, Parirenyatwa, said it had run out of beds for Covid-19 patients, worsening the health hazard that the country faces. Covid-19 has also hit several of the country’s rural areas, where cut-off citizens are vulnerable due to limited knowledge about the pandemic and resistance to altering traditional customs.
Speaking at the graduation of prison officers in Ntabazinduna, outside Bulawayo on Saturday, Mnangagwa hinted that those who chose not to be vaccinated will be sidelined from specific economic and social activities.
He said normalcy can only return to the country if people were vaccinated in large numbers.
Speaking at the Robert Mugabe International Airport in Harare on Saturday, after taking delivery of 500,000 vaccines, deputy health minister John Mangwiro reinforced Mnangagwa’s statements, saying citizens will soon be required to produce vaccination certificates for them to operate their businesses or go to work.
“We are going to say if you really want to be selling at your market place or to be where you are you need to be vaccinated, we definitely need to see that you have your certificate,” he said.
“We do not want any Zimbabwean to be a risk to another Zimbabwean, we need to protect each other, it’s a right of Zimbabweans to life and we don’t want you to be part of the risk so we encourage everyone to be vaccinated.”
On Sunday, deputy Movement for Democratic Change Alliance spokesperson Clifford Hlatshwayo said the government’s statements were unfortunate. He said there was no law in the country that compelled citizens to be vaccinated against their will.
“We note with great surprise the pronouncement by the minister of health and child care that those people who have not been vaccinated will not be able to do business in the market place.”
Hlatshwayo called out Mnangagwa’s government for failing to live up to its promise to procure 1-million vaccines every month.
In recent weeks the country has recorded a shortage of vaccines as people seeking to be vaccinated have been turned away from public hospitals.
“We can still reach herd immunity by vaccinating those that want to be vaccinated. There is no need to force everyone to be vaccinated,” said Hlatshwayo.
Legal experts say Zimbabwe’s government could be stepping on a legal minefield as compulsory vaccinations will be “almost impossible to enforce”.
In an interview with Business Day on Sunday, human rights lawyer David Coltart said forcing citizens to be vaccinated is unconstitutional.
“That violates section 68 of the constitution which gives citizens the right to fair administrative conduct. Even if the vaccines are available, it is illegal to force people to use them,” he said.
“Some people may have a problem with taking a particular vaccine that the government forces on them. Others may have side effects against a particular vaccine. So really, government should think through this, otherwise they risk trampling on the rights of citizens.”
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