“A person’s a person, no matter how small,” said Dr Seuss. Or, as Nelson Mandela put it: “One of the ways we can build a better future for our children is by empowering them through allowing them to speak up for themselves ... The rights of children must, importantly, include the right to be themselves and to talk for themselves.”
It is with these words in mind that we welcome the announcement this week by health minister Joe Phaahla that children between 12 and 17 will be eligible for a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine from Wednesday — without requiring parental consent.
Any child would benefit from guidance in medical decisions by loving and responsible parents, but such guidance is not always available.
The Children’s Act recognises the right of children over 12 to consent to medical treatment — including requesting contraception — for themselves, provided they have the maturity to understand the risks and implications of the treatment. Girls of any age can terminate a pregnancy without parental consent.
Children should have autonomy in the decision to be vaccinated. Their risk of serious illness or death is small compared with the over-50s, but some children have fallen ill and those with underlying comorbidities are at higher risk.
However, the opening of vaccinations to younger teenagers is not just about individual rights. Professor Shabir Madhi told MyHealth360: “When we vaccinate that age group, we are mainly vaccinating them not for individual protection, but rather because of trying to reduce the number of people that could transmit the virus in the community.”
He pointed out that a better intervention would be to get more people in the higher-risk age groups vaccinated. His guidance in this matter is on-point, as it has been throughout the pandemic.
Yet the reluctance in older citizens is matched by the enthusiasm of younger ones. “Over half-a-million South Africans enrolled on the day that registration for over-18s opened,” President Cyril Ramaphosa told us in one of his Monday newsletters.
Young South Africans may not be the most vulnerable to Covid, but they are showing greater trust in science — and greater social responsibility — than their elders. They are showing they are capable of making good decisions. The least we can do is trust them to do so.
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