The Director, UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development, New Delhi, India, Professor Obijiofor Aginam, on Saturday, acknowledged that God saved Africa from the COVID-19 pandemic, which killed millions of people in other parts of the world.
Aginam also attributed the inability of the continent to effectively participate in global health policy decision making and governance to the illegitimacy of over 80 percent of African governments.
The UN expert spoke in Enugu while featuring in Freedom Square Live discussion and audience participation programme on Solid FM 100.9, hosted by Sir Uchenna Cyril Anioke, Ph.D.
The two-hour discussion centred on the theme “Globalization and Public Health: A Focus on Sub-Saharan Africa.”
According to Aginam, Africa thought it had gotten over the bitter lessons of the Ebola era, during which the World Health Organisation (WHO) failed the continent, when COVID-19 pandemic struck the world.
He said although African governments did not prepare for the pandemic, divine intervention did not allow the disease to hit the continent hard, the way it struck other continents.
Evoking memories of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis in Africa, the Professor of Law identified the politics of vaccines as the major challenge that the continent faced during the outbreak.
He recalled that that there were all kinds of conspiracy theories, asking people not to take the vaccines, labelled “a western conspiracy to depopulate Africa,” while women in particular, were warned that they would lose their fertility if they took the vaccine.
Aginam said: “When these vaccines came out, there ought to have been an international scientific verification of its efficacy. There is no vaccine that is 100 percent efficient. Even the ones that are used for children.
“The suspicion was the speed at which the COVID-Vaccines were made. But they are dealing with a crisis. People were dying. Africa was not prepared. God saved us from COVID because when I look at what happened in the West, the level of deaths in Canada, United States and Europe, and look at Africa, I ask myself, what is in our genes that made it not to hit us hard? The WHO is actually amazed?
“If you look at the list and percentage of administration of the vaccines globally, most Africans did not take it but they survived. So, what this has taught us is that even if you do not trust these vaccines, every country should have its own academy of sciences and bio-scientists that should be able to subject the vaccines to verification and give proper advice.
“The point is who you are listening to, which is part of the work that my institute is doing now. What we call media information literacy. In crisis, who are people listening to? Would you listen to the health minister or a scientist that is renowned on that subject, or information you get from social media.”
Offering suggestions on how Sub-Saharan Africa could move from dependency to self-reliance in healthcare innovation and production, he said countries in the region should put in place, not just vaccines, but medical counter measures, including sufficiency in Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) and oxygen, among others.
According to him, Africans should have sovereignty over the PPEs, oxygen and others, which are all part of the equation, because it is not just vaccines that are needed to tackle disease outbreak.
Speaking further, Aginam said: “During COVID-19, a lot of people survived because there was enough oxygen. There were PPEs to go round. There were ventilators for people in extreme situations. When we talk about medical counter measures, these are the things that we are talking about. Africans should have sovereignty over those.
“You were right about vaccine inequity. The WHO called it global vaccine apartheid. Some people called it vaccine protectionism. Some called it vaccine nationalism. These were the things. We have written about these things and published them. Those three vaccines that were coming from Moderna, Pfizer and AstraZeneca, were made in Europe.
“As soon as the vaccines were certified, they stockpiled them to vaccinate their own population, to enable them get herd immunity before thinking about the rest of the world. That fuelled the vaccine apartheid that we are talking about.”
Aginam cited Botswana as an example of the countries that placed orders for the vaccines, but the orders were delayed because the vaccines were being stockpiled by the developed countries that produced them.
According to the expert, it was when things started easing and Europeans, Canadians and Americans had been vaccinated, that they started donating vaccines through an arrangement by the WHO.
He regretted that these donated vaccines had very short shelf life, and by the time they got to Africa, some of them had expired and were destroyed.
Regarding the inability of African countries to effectively participate in global health policy decision making and governance, Aginam attributed this unhealthy development to the illegitimacy of 80 percent of African governments, lamenting that the continent cannot even conduct credible elections.
He blamed the illegitimacy of African governments for nepotism, favouritism and corruption in the continent.
“If you come to Nigeria now and you tell people that the government is serious about fighting corruption, they will laugh at you because they know you are not serious. In African countries where the level of governance is high, like Namibia, Botswana, among others, you find that they are able to pursue credible policies on sustainable development,’ the expert said.
On whether globalization is serving African interest, he emphasized that health is part of foreign policy and foreign policy is about interest, adding that if you do not articulate your interest, nobody will do it for you.
Revisiting what Europeans did during colonial times and are doing in this era of post-colonial and imperialistic paradigms, Aginam said they (Europeans) are happy to see Africa where it is, with prolonged conflicts in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Sudan, basically forgotten by the international community.
He said Africa must put its house in order if it must participate effectively in global affairs.
Suggesting ways that African countries can leverage on international health regulations to protect their borders without crippling trade, Aginam said they can maintain a balance, although there are excessive measures that the regulations sought to enforce.
He cited instances of over-reaction, with the cholera outbreak in Peru, which made the United States to place embargo on goods from that country, and the one around Lake Victoria region in East Africa, that prompted Europe to ban fresh fish from Kenya, Mozambique and Uganda, making these countries to suffer.
He maintained that there should be scientific confirmation of the outbreak before such drastic measures are taken, not just on mere suspicion of outbreaks in those countries.