By Yusef Taylor, @FlexDan_YT and Alimatou S. Bajinka
Gainako Online News has received a complaint from a parent of a student at Glory Baptist School that their child was vaccinated without their consent. According to the parent who showed us their child’s vaccine certificate, the child was vaccinated on 20th January 2022.
To verify this our reporter visited Glory Baptist School and spoke to Government Officials to react to the concerns raised by the parent. Our enquiry with officials from the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education (MoBSE) and Ministry of Health (MoH) has confirmed that vaccination is taking place in schools voluntarily. However, government officials could not confirm if prior parental consent were being sought.
Compulsory Vaccination?
A message in a group chat sent on 20th January 2022 from the parent caught this medium’s attention. According to the parent “my [child] came home a few minutes ago with a complaint of headache and dizziness due to a compulsory Covid-19 vaccination of J & J.”
The parent alleges that “the school forced them to take or will not be allowed to stay. I personally called the school and a Senior Teacher confirmed this and told me that MoBSE gave the order”.
After contacting the parent, they informed Gainako Online News that their child had just turned eighteen (18) years and that they were informed that if they did not take the vaccine they would not be allowed to continue with the school.
After receiving the vaccine, the parent explained that their child was sick for some days and only returned to school yesterday 25th January 2022. In the parents view their child should not have been vaccinated without their consent.
MoBSE and MoH Claims Vaccines Are Voluntary
When our reporter visited Glory Baptist School the Principal was not present to respond to questions and the staff were not willing to speak about the issue. Nonetheless, our reporter managed to get responses from officials at both MoBSE and MoH.
According to the MoBSE’s Permanent Secretary, Louie Moses Mendy, “there was no instruction from MoBSE to vaccinate schools, instead, the MoH wrote to MoBSE but it was in fact about the polio vaccine for children under five years at schools which was not even compulsory”.
Asked if vaccination is now compulsory to which he responded that “people should [get vaccinated] but voluntarily not forcefully, vaccination should be voluntarily and no such instruction came from MoBSE”.
Although the Official at MoBSE appeared oblivious about the Covid 19 Vaccine the MoH Officials confirmed the mass vaccinations in schools which will be rolling out across the country.
When our reporter spoke to the MoH’s Deputy Program Manager, Mr Mbaye Njie he confirmed that “vaccination is currently underway at senior secondary schools, we are currently at region one and hoping to cover all regions”.
However, when asked if vaccination is compulsory for students, he refuted the suggestion. Instead, Mr Mbaye enthused that “there is nothing like compulsory vaccinations at schools and we have not received any complaints from schools or teachers. Vaccinations around the world are not compulsory why should we?”
Giving some examples Mr Mbaye explained that “in some instances, we have schools call us saying their students are willing to take the vaccine voluntary, that was the case with Gambia Senior Secondary School”.
According to Mr Mbaye, “we only vaccinate students aged eighteen (18) years and above, no child was being vaccinated so far”.
When asked if the vaccinations set to expire has compelled the MoH to roll out a mass vaccination program, Mr Mbaye rejected the suggestion. “The vaccination has nothing to do with the vaccines that are about to be expired, this mass vaccination is a routine meant to curb the spread of the virus and it is voluntary,” he said.
Banjulinding Upper Basic School Vaccinated
In an attempt to confirm if vaccines were being administered to students without prior parental consent our medium spoke to an adult who has two younger siblings at Banjulinding Upper Basic School.
According to the person we spoke to their younger siblings “from grade 10 science has confirmed to [them] that in Banjulinding Upper and Senior Secondary School, some health care personnel visited their school to vaccinate the students last week” ending 23rd January 2022.
“According to my younger [siblings] health care personnel visited the classes and convinced the students to take the vaccine.” In that instance, almost half of the class took the vaccines voluntarily after being educated by health officials on the importance of taking the vaccine to be safe from Covid 19.
Is Parental Consent Necessary for Students Over 18?
It appears that the MoH is only vaccinating students who are eighteen (18) years and above, however, this raises the question if students aged eighteen (18) and above should be vaccinated without prior parental consent? Another important point to note is that students should not be threatened with being forced to leave school if they refuse to take the vaccination. This undermines the narrative that taking vaccinations is voluntary.
Finally, it’s important to have access to a person’s medical records or any record of students who have already taken the vaccines to avoid double vaccinating people and to avoid undesirable results. This includes gaining access to a person’s allergy records before administering vaccines to them.