Gibson Nyikadzino
COVID-19 infections and deaths are surging in Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, South Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where 32 parliamentarians and several aides to the president, Félix Tshisekedi, are among those who have died.
Africa is living in a time of terrible crisis, but of tremendous opportunities to the western world.
“The threat of a third wave in Africa is real and rising. Our priority is clear – it’s crucial that we swiftly get vaccines into the arms of Africans at high risk of falling seriously ill and dying of Covid-19,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organization (WHO) regional director for Africa.
The upsurge of the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa and other poor countries through the third wave caused by the highly virulent India’s delta variant has shaken the essence of global “humanitarianism.” With lessons from India’s delta variant cases, there are widespread fears that Africa could suffer similar or worse devastation to that seen in India, which has a more robust health system than many African countries.
Countries such as Burundi, Chad, Eritrea and Tanzania are yet to start any vaccination campaign. In Seychelles, a resurgence of infection continues despite it being the most vaccinated country in Africa, possibly due to new variants and “the relatively low” efficacy of China’s Sinopharm vaccine.
Where lives are at stake, hoarding and the desire for profits have informed decisions on how vaccines are and should be allocated. The political economy around vaccine access and allocation continues to be dominated by the wealthy and powerful. This is a deliberate global architecture of unfairness on Africa and the developing world.
Grabbing the producer to control production
There are no signs of progress in improving access to vaccines.
Zimbabwe’s businessman Strive Masiyiwa, on behalf of the African Union (AU), in December last year met all vaccine producers and said the AU wanted to “buy vaccines in cash and not asking for donations.” According to the vaccine producers, all 2021 production capacity had been sold out. “The people who bought and those who sold the vaccines knew there would be nothing for Africa,” Masiyiwa recently said.
Before a G7 meeting held in Britain last month, USA’s Joe Biden said his country is donating 500 million doses of vaccines to poor countries while a post-G7 meeting, the group pledged a billion doses in donations to poor countries before the end of the year.
At a meeting by the G20 leaders in May at the European Union (EU) headquarters, vaccine producing companies pledged to give Africa aid. The EU pledged to give Africa 100 million vaccines by the end of the year. So far the continent has received a cumulative 32 million vaccines. On the other hand, vaccine producing companies like Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Johnson and Johnson said they will avail 1.3 billion vaccines to Africa by year end at a “slight” commercial value.
There is a serious breach of trust between the “haves” and the “have-nots” regarding who is interested in eradicating the pandemic.
As the global leading economies march towards opening up their economies, schools and other facilities, poor countries have been affected and appear to be making a long march backwards. The humanitarian veil used first to calm the nerves of poor nations the world has put on access to COVID19 vaccines through the COVAX continues to tear. The face behind the facility is no longer humanitarian as first postured. It is a two-faced facility. It looks at the humanitarian and the political, with the latter ultimately emerging victorious.
The COVAX Facility, we are told, is the vaccines pillar of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator working on the global collaboration to the development, production and equitable access to vaccines. The facility is led by the Coalition of epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Gavi and the World Health Organisation (WHO), alongside UNICEF. It is governed by equitable access of vaccines, and, for humanitarian purposes countries such as Iran, Syria, Venezuela, North Korea and Zimbabwe, though under USA sanctions, can access the facility.
The COVAX facility is ‘not’ exempt from sanctions. Recently, the government of Venezuela (under USA sanctions) made a US$109 million dollar purchase of five million doses of vaccines under the COVAX facility. But so far the country has received none, although most regional neighbors from Nicaragua to Colombia having already received hundreds of thousands of doses under the facility. Venezuela received a letter from WHO signaling that the sixteen transactions processed by Venezuelan banks could not be processed.
Last Thursday, US officials issued an exemption to its sanctions on Venezuela, as well as on Syria and Iran, clarifying that financial transactions related to COVID-19 treatment and testing were permitted. With a population of some 30 million, Venezuela has only received 3.5 million vaccines from allies, Russia and China.
Dying in comfortable agony
According to French President Emmanuel Macron, in June, one in six Europeans had been vaccinated, one in five in North America but just one in 100 in Africa.
“It’s unacceptable,” he said.
In Feb. 2021 Africa reached the 100 000 death mark of known COVID-19 deaths. In this picture, a health worker disinfects family members during a burial of a person who died from COVID-19, in Harare, Zimbabwe. The continent had earlier been praised for its early response to the pandemic, but is now struggling with a dangerous resurgence. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has repeatedly denounced inequities in vaccine distribution and urged wealthier countries to share excess doses to help inoculate health workers in low-income countries. The idea of humanitarianism in this complex global order is as detestable as misfortunes, especially in the context of COVID-19. What the vaccine manufacturing companies are doing is to promote the vast network of European and American commercial interests. The current situation is also a promotion of western foreign policy and corporate commercial interests. It is driven by greed rather than the desire to make life better for the majority of global citizens.
At one point, the USA spent over US$87 billion dollars conducting its war in Iraq while the United Nations estimates that for less than half that amount it could provide clean water, adequate diets, sanitation services and basic education to every person on the planet.
Africa is being pushed into poverty and citizens dying comfortably if the situation is not addressed.
A recent report by the US Pew Research Center found that about 494 million people in sub-Saharan Africa, out of a total population of 1.14 billion, were expected to be living in poverty before the pandemic in 2020. That total has risen by 40 million, the report estimated.
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