More than half the credible science says that the new Covid-19 variant, Omicron, was largely a result of vaccine stinginess by western nations. That less than 5 percent of Africans are vaccinated gives the virus multiple opportunities to mutate. Western nations, which have hoarded more than 10 times the stock of Covid-19 vaccines than they actually need, still refuse to share the vaccines in a world where borders are porous. Perhaps feeling that “racism” would be too big a word, the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, called this situation “vaccine apartheid.” This vaccine racism happens a year after an appeal by Pope Francis that the vaccines be made available to everyone fell on deaf ears.
One form of this vaccine racism has taken the form of replacing the World Health Organisation with the World Trade Organisation. The Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna and Oxford-AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are protected under the WTO’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS). For two years now, India and South Africa have been asking the WTO to suspend all patents for any COVID-19 vaccines. At TRIPS Council meeting, these countries have made the quite legitimate case that a “global solution” is needed for a global pandemic that has adversely impacted the global community. They have asked the international trade body to temporarily waive Sections 1, 4, 5 and 7 of Part II of the TRIPS Agreement related to copyright, patent, trade secrets, protection of undisclosed information and industrial designs until a majority of the world population has been inoculated and developed immunity. In terms of such proposal, countries would ensure their citizens access to the vaccines in a timely manner by producing generic versions of these treatments and vaccines.
However, such overtures are being fiercely resisted by western powers that have invested heavily in the development of the vaccines. These powers insist on sharing their vaccines in line with the intellectual property rights that are safeguarded under TRIPs. According to analysis conducted by kENUP Foundation, a European health research foundation, western governments spent €88.3 billion (about P1.2 trillion) for the development of COVID vaccines. This was an investment and those governments now want returns on an investment that has extremely high economic value. That is an objective that can be achieved only through the WTO and not WHO.
Vaccine racism pales in comparison to what happened last month when Omicron was discovered either in Botswana (according to the Botswana government) or South Africa (according to international media). Western nations immediately imposed a travel ban on Southern African nations. The ban was kept in place even when science revealed that this variant was the weakest there has been so far. Odder still, the ban applied to Southern Africa only even when Omicron was discovered in some parts of western Europe, a United States city and Israel. Evidently, the west was responding not to Omicron as a variant of concern but to Africa as a continent of concern.
With President Cyril Ramaphosa leading the way, SADC leaders rightly complained that they shouldn’t be punished for having alerted the world about Omicron. For a moment that looked like they were flexing their scrawny muscles. Then, in the midst of this west-occasioned crisis, a western leader decided to host a virtual democracy summit from the White House.
Think of it this way: your house is on fire and in the middle of this life-and-death emergency, a neighbour comes over and wants to distract attention away from the burning house to an elaborate discussion on Palesa Molefe’s wardrobe for Miss World 2021. It is important that Palesa wins the Miss World title (not least to singlehandedly do work that Brand Botswana hasn’t been able to do too well) but her win could never be more important than putting out a raging house fire. It is important for world leaders to talk about democracy but that can never be more important than immunising people against a disease whose character scientists are still trying to figure out. Vaccines immunise people against Covid-19, talking about democracy doesn’t.
When they spoke about against the west for unfairly punishing their countries, SADC leaders used what little power they have. However, when they participated in Biden’s talking shop to talk about an issue that was secondary to the crisis they were confronted with, they rendered themselves powerless. The arrogance of Americans is such that despite the dastardly manner in which they had treated Africans in general and Southern Africans in particular, they still had the temerity to talk about human rights at Biden’s summit. Health is a human right and as a matter of fact, WHO’s original (1946) constitution describes it as “the highest attainable standard of health as a fundamental right of every human being.”
The segment in which President Hakainde Hichilema of Zambia featured was themed “Bolstering Democratic Resilience: Building Back Better Together from COVID-19.” The US and other western nations were certainly not thinking in terms of “together” when they shut off Southern Africa from the rest of the world. While our own President Mokgweetsi Masisi featured in a segment on corruption, he used part of the four minutes and 44 seconds he was allowed at the podium to talk about promoting “respect for human rights” in a very general manner. He mentioned Covid-19 but not in the context of the mistreatment that Southern Africa was suffering at the hands of the west.
One supposes that both Masisi and Hichilema wanted to confront Biden about the homicidal greed and hypocrisy of a system that he is the putative head of. However, they know the limit of what little power they have. Resultantly, they agreed to discuss Palesa’s wardrobe than the fire ravaging a house.
It is not just political leaders who are powerless. Africans generally celebrate Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stewardship of WHO and Dr. Matshidiso Moeti’s of the WHO Africa Region as some kind of breakthrough success. The reality though is that WHO has systems and processes that are firmly oriented towards western interest. The appointment of African leaders in the health sector to senior positions within the international body was never going to change that.
