Compulsory vaccination against COVID-19 in the context of the principles of the convention on human rights and biomedicine.

Mariya V Hristozova, Maria A Semerdjieva, Momchil S Mavrov, Desislava R Bakova

Folia medica 2023 Feb 28

filter terms:

At this stage of the global health crisis caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, an increasing number of countries are considering enacting legislation requiring compulsory vaccination or implementing a mechanism to ensure mass vaccination of the population. Such policy decisions raise a number of legal and deontological issues. The aim of the study was to analyze the legal and deontological issues related to the introduction of compulsory vaccination against COVID-19 in the context of the principles of the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine (Oviedo Convention). The analysis looks at the international legal framework that governs the protection of human rights and freedoms, the principles and rules that apply to the achievements of biology and medicine, and, in particular, the Oviedo Convention. Vaccines against COVID-19 are a modern scientific success in biology and medicine, particularly those of the latest genera-tion of vaccines presented by the scientific community as a consequence of revolutionary mRNA technology. It is for this reason that the provisions of the Oviedo Convention should serve as guidelines for countries to follow in their fight against COVID-19 pandemic. Achieving mass vaccination of the population in accordance with the provisions of the Oviedo Convention and other rel-evant international standards for the protection of fundamental human rights, in conjunction with a large-scale information campaign, seems a sensible approach that would contribute to the rapid and peaceful resolution of the current global health crisis. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Citation

Mariya V Hristozova, Maria A Semerdjieva, Momchil S Mavrov, Desislava R Bakova. Compulsory vaccination against COVID-19 in the context of the principles of the convention on human rights and biomedicine. Folia medica. 2023 Feb 28;65(1):111-115