HARARE, Zimbabwe — Zimbabwe officials have told all government employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19 or they won’t be allowed to come to work.

It wasn’t clear what would happen to those who refused to be vaccinated. State-owned newspaper The Herald reported the government would adopt a policy where unvaccinated workers wouldn’t be paid.

The government is Zimbabwe’s biggest employer and has about 500,000 workers.

Zimbabwe is one of the leading African countries in terms of vaccinations. More than 12% of the southern African nation’s 15 million people are fully vaccinated. That compares to just 3.6% of people across the continent, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Zimbabwe has received more than 11 million doses, mainly the Chinese Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines. The southern African nation announced last month it was opening COVID-19 vaccinations to children ages 14 to 17.