The decision by several governments around the world to lift travel bans in seven African countries, effective November 27, over the discovery of the new Covid-19, the Omicron, seems to be swift in the eyes of some and is entirely justified. Medical reasons, from the point of view of others. However, this issue is far from unique.
The rapid pace of congestion in some of Africa's poorest countries, including Botswana, Lesotho and Zimbabwe, is particularly disturbing when placed in the right context of the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic on the Global South, in particular, and in Africa, in particular.
"I have decided that we will be vigilant," U.S. President Joe Biden told reporters on November 26, explaining the new travel restrictions imposed by Washington. "We don't know much about diversity except that it's a major concern, it seems to be spreading rapidly."
Though polite and expressive, the Western multi-government ban base for citizens of the seven African countries is reminiscent of the January 2017 decision by former US President Donald Trump to ban citizens of seven Muslim countries - three of them from Africa. - entering the US on the basis of a little imagination and, of course, a clear racist idea, that by doing so, the US will be able to fix its problems.
At the time, Trump called for "a complete and complete ban on Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives know what is happening".
The South African Department of Foreign Affairs immediately criticized the baseless decision on partition before understanding the nature of the new diversity. In fact, at that time, and until the writing of this article, not a single death was directly linked to Omicron. Compare this with the Delta diversity, which was first discovered in India and spread rapidly in the United Kingdom, causing many deaths and devastation, yet without forcing immediate decisions to divide the Delta-occupied countries.
Advanced science should be applauded and not punished, the South African Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement, adding that travel restrictions "are like punishing South Africa for its improved genomic system and the ability to detect new species quickly".
Speaking to the BBC, The African Union chief executive emphasized, and rightly so, that the spread of these differences is a direct result of the deep inequalities that have plagued the epidemic since its inception.
What is happening now […] is the result of the world's failure to vaccinate equally, urgently and quickly. It is because of the collection of [vaccines] of the world's richest countries, and, without a doubt, it is unacceptable, said, adding that" the travel ban is based on politics and not science ".
In fact, assisting Africa in its critical fight against the epidemic should have been done systematically as part of a global strategy. Alas, little of that happened. From the beginning, rich countries like the US, European countries, China and Japan had provided financial packages to keep their economy strong. At times, they even provided direct financial support to all their citizens in order to alleviate the growing unemployment and long-term closure. Africa, because of global inequality and widespread poverty, has not been able to afford such things. Worse still, African countries are the last to find life-saving goals.
Instead, access to vaccines in Africa was seen as a form of charity, which has been incorporated into the discussion of the kindness and interest of rich Western nations. Sadly, the main measure of deep inequality, which has put Africa in its worst economic situation since the beginning, was represented by the COV AX program, sponsored by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEP I), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Vaccine Alliance (GAV I), among other charities.
COV AX, launched in April 2020, has been successfully described as an effective platform for "accelerating the development and production of COVID-19 vaccines, and ensuring fair and equitable access to all countries".
Twenty months later, one can easily see that COV AX has failed in its quest to provide poor and developing countries with protection from the epidemic. This is not a judgment on the structure, morals or integrity of COV AX, but it is a crime on those who insist that one can apply the same standards of economic and social exploitation to a deadly epidemic that does not discriminate between race, nationality or class.
“As rich countries produce more positive images, 98% of people in low-income countries remain unprotected. COV AX […] has donated only 5 percent of all vaccines used worldwide and recently announced that it will lose its $2 billion targets by 2021,” Rosa Furneaux and Olivia Gold hill wrote in a recent article published in Quartz.
According to a report published by Reuters, Lesotho - one of the African countries targeted for a new travel ban - only 14.5 percent of the population is fully vaccinated. Zimbabwe and Botswana are just a few steps away, at 22.6 percent and 29.4 percent respectively, far beyond the estimated 60 to 70 percent of the population.
It has been almost two years since the Covid epidemic hit the world, yet the world is persisting in tackling a global problem with ethnic and political solutions. The fact that we continue to struggle against this virus and its variants indicates that traditional thinking has completely failed. In order for the epidemic to finally be overcome, we need to get rid of the idea of getting rich against the poor and the north against the south. For the earth to be saved, we must all be saved together.
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