Kenyan High Court on Tuesday temporarily stopped the enforcement of a government directive that requires citizens to get fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to use public transport, government services, and public utility areas, reported Africa News.
In November, Kenyan Health Minister Mutahi Kagwe announced people would be required to show proof of vaccination by Dec. 21 in order to access public services including schools, transport, immigration and government offices, hotels, restaurants, bars, national parks, and wildlife reserves.
On Tuesday, Antony Mrima, a high court judge in Nairobi, issued a temporary order that barred implementation of the government directive pending a hearing on a petition filed by a Kenyan businessman who described it as unconstitutional.
Some human rights organizations have described the government’s decision to bar unvaccinated people from using government services as discriminatory and appealed to the government to withdraw the full vaccination requirement, which also applies to visitors from Europe.
“If the government has an obligation to protect its population from serious threats to public health, the measures must be reasonable and proportionate,” the Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement on Tuesday.
The HRW pointed out that the country didn’t have enough stock of COVID-19 vaccine to vaccinate all adults before the scheduled start date.
Rights group Amnesty International has also criticized the Kenyan government’s move as unrealistic and flawed.
On Sunday, Health Minister Mutahi Kagwe said the government’s directive is aimed at protecting those vaccinated from exposure to the infection.
Kagwe said that the step was important due to the emergence of the Omicron variant. He said health experts have warned that the new covid-19 variant is more infectious than all previous forms of the virus.
According to data released by Kenya’s government, only 3.2 million people, or 12% of the population, have so far been fully vaccinated.
On Monday, the Covid-19 positivity rate in the African country crossed the 5% threshold for the first time since the authorities eased control measures two months ago.
