HIV/Aids? Covid-19 is worse

Midas Touché East Africa

What you need to know:

This approach to deny travellers from Africa entry into Europe, America and other so-called “Western” countries pre-supposes that the Covid-19 burden is purely African while they know in their heart of hearts that it isn’t.

World Aids Day is marked on December 1 of each succeeding year.
However, this year (2021), the world is preoccupied with other maladies, including especially the global Covid-19 pandemic whose new variant, “Omicron,” recently surfaced in South Africa.
What lessons have we learned from nearly two years of Covid-19 since it first erupted in Wuhan City of the Hubei Province, China, in December 2019?
First we are told that the developed world is once again putting Africa at the centre-stage of the hydra-headed viral monster whose origin, we all know, is China. Irrespective of whether or not Omicron surfaced in South Africa, the world ought to be doing better that just pointing a finger of blame at Africa.
If we in Africa are not producing anti-Covid-19 vaccines in large enough quantities as we should, and it is absurd that some countries in the West should take advantage of the pandemic to discriminate against people from Africa when those countries are hoarding the vaccines.
This approach to deny travellers from Africa entry into Europe, America and other so-called “Western” countries pre-supposes that the Covid-19 burden is purely African while they know in their heart of hearts that it isn’t.
In a rapidly globalising world, it would make sense for the West, guided by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and like-minded development partners made the vaccines available free-of-charge across the world.
This would be the right thing to as the world tackles the global pandemic. However, while we confront the stark reality – that the West is hoarding the Covid-19 vaccines – we must also expose the leaders in Africa who have abdicated their responsibilities in what amounts to a dereliction of their duties.
In the two years of the pandemic – and, as it has always been the case when it comes to emergencies – Africa has been the place where challenges have perennially existed. But, more often than not, we have denied their existence, or called in witchdoctors to intervene even is cases of ordinary health problems.
That Covid-19 deaths in Africa have not been astronomical in numbers has not stopped our Western detractors from deriding Africa.
That said, the global pandemic that is basically caused by the rapidly mutating coronavirus has raised fundamental issues which the Addis Ababa-based African Union (AU) ought to examine and establish how best it is positioned to effectively tackle African problems. It is easy to forget that the African Union exists if it takes no action in efforts to surmount such problems continentally.
However, we probably should spare AU from responsibility. This is arguably on account of the fact that its very seat, Ethiopia, is currently neck-deep in an internecine war with its Tigray Region which begun in earnest on November 3, 2020 – and the AU has failed to sort that out!
The future of AU’s Agenda-2063 should not be dictated by narrow self-inflicted by individual countries but, by the common good of the African people. The Covid-19 pandemic is a reminder that we are fated to live together on the African continent – or perish together... And, this latter seems to be the case now!
The West needs to know that in an increasingly globalising world, “vaccine-passports” are not the way to go even if the temptation is real. That “Westerners” have borne the brunt of the problem is all the more reason that, under WHO, there ought to be more willingness on their part to make access to vaccines nondiscriminatory.
Africa, for its part, must do more to develop its own medical research and curative capacity that is not dependent on the magnanimity of Westerners. We are reminded that, for untold generations, Westerners have plundered the wealth of the African continent, mostly in the form of natural resources, used it to build their own productive capacity.
If we put our heads together on common African interests, we would most probably do a much better job than we have been doing so far. And, while God the Merciful has been kind to Africa regarding the Covid-19 pandemic, we shouldn’t kid ourselves that the Almighty will do for us more than He already has been doing.