WHO Against Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccines

By Edna Wande On Dec 7, 2020

World Health Organization has on Monday expressed that persuading people to receive COVID-19 vaccine would be better than trying to make the jabs mandatory.

The UN health organization said it would be down to individual countries as to how they want to conduct their vaccination campaigns against the coronavirus pandemic.

WHO insisted making it mandatory to get immunised against the disease would be the wrong road to take.

Kate O’Brien, director of the WHO’s immunisation department, told a virtual news conference that;

I don’t think that mandates are the direction to go in here, especially for these vaccines. It is a much better position to actually encourage and facilitate the vaccination without those kinds of requirements. I don’t think we envision any countries creating a mandate for vaccination.

O’Brien said there may be certain professions in which being vaccinated might be required or highly recommended, such as respiratory technicians and intensive care medics in hospitals, for the safety of both the staff and the patients.

However, WHO experts admitted there was a battle to be fought to convince the general public to take the vaccines as they become available.

The organisation’s emergencies director Michael Ryan said people needed to ask themselves what they were willing to do in order to protect themselves and those around them.

He noted that;

The vaccine story is a good news story. It is the victory of human endeavour, potentially, over a microbial adversary. We need to convince people and we need to persuade.

As for making vaccines mandatory, I think all of us who work in public health would rather avoid that as a means for getting people vaccinated.

Ryan added;

We are much better served to present people with the data and the benefits and let people make up their own minds.

There are certain circumstances where I would believe that the only responsible thing would be to be vaccinated.

Via AFP.