HEALTH
Global Health Security for Whom ? Africans Reduced to Pawns in Geo-strategic Rivalry
Lonzen Rugira
A
crisis should never go to waste . Consequently , the 1990s should have taught Africa a lesson about how the world works . The HIV / AIDS pandemic was wreaking havoc across the globe and , like the Coronavirus , didn ’ t seem to discriminate between ( economically ) rich and poor countries . Hollywood stars in California were getting infected and dying in equal measure as farmers in rural Africa . However , it didn ’ t take long for the West to find a solution for the pandemic through the manufacturing of life-saving anti-retroviral ( ARVs ) drugs that are able to boost the immune system of the infected .
While HIV / AIDS stopped being an epidemic in rich countries that could afford the drugs , it became endemic in poor countries . For approximately two decades , activists pleaded with rich countries to persuade their drug manufacturers to lift patent rights . By the time the pharmaceutical industry accepted to allow the production of generic ARVs in India , Brazil , and South Africa , at least 30 million lives had been lost globally , with Africans accounting over 20 million deaths .
A similar pattern is developing today with regard to Covid-19 : the rich countries have found a solution that has allowed them to enter what they are calling “ a post- Covid ” situation . At the same time , they have colluded to hoard more vaccines than they need , placing export restrictions on pharmaceutical companies , and resisting calls to wave patent rights for these life-saving vaccines , a situation that places Africa under their benevolence . In other words , the Covid-19 pandemic – like the HIV / AIDS pandemic before it – threatens to become an endemic disease for some , precisely because important lessns were not learned .
Pawns in geo-strategic rivalry
The global response and sustainable solution to the coronavirus pandemic has been the manufacturing of Covid-19 vaccines . In this , Africa ’ s agency has been missing . Africa ’ s health security has been placed in the hands of “ benevolent ” actors who , abandoning any semblance to live up to their professed values , decided to grab
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