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NewsDay

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We are better off confronting public health issues as one race

Opinion & Analysis
On the same day, WHO designated the variant B.1.1.529 a variant of concern, named Omicron, on the advice of WHO’s Technical Advisory Group on Virus Evolution (TAG-VE). 

By Tapiwa Gomo

IT has been an interesting fortnight. A fortnight full of drama with the new COVID-19 variant dominating the headlines. In fact, it was not the new COVID-19 variant itself that stole the headlines but the geopolitical drama that ensued after the new variant was announced. It was a period when the world had to be reminded of geopolitical relations in the context of a global public health pandemic.

It was on November 26 that Botswana and South African scientists identified a new version of the coronavirus which they say was behind a recent spike in COVID-19 infections. As per norm, they immediately informed the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the world.

On the same day, WHO designated the variant B.1.1.529 a variant of concern, named Omicron, on the advice of WHO’s Technical Advisory Group on Virus Evolution (TAG-VE).

This decision was based on the evidence presented to the TAG-VE that Omicron has several mutations that may have an impact on how it behaves, for example, on how easily it spreads or the severity of the illness it causes.

For Botswana and South Africa, informing WHO and the world was part of being transparent so that the world could prepare for the new variant better.

The reaction by some European countries and the United States of America has raised more questions than answers, raising concern over apartheid and the stigma associated with Africa and global pandemics.

It would later turn out that the Omicron variant was detected in European countries before the announcement by Botswana and South Africa.

Key among those questions is why some Western countries took knee-jerk measures against southern African countries when they had far less cases compared to some European countries and the USA.

In fact, southern African countries combined had less cases than the United Kingdom and yet the latter imposed travelling bans on the former.

In the absence of scientific arguments to back these travel bans, most concluded that it was politics and racism that influenced these decisions.

In addition to other global ills such as poverty, backwardness and darkness, Africa has been known by the Western world as the epicentre of all major diseases.

Take for example, malaria is known to be one of the most severe public health problems worldwide and a leading cause of death and disease in many developing countries in 2019.

In the same year, malaria is believed to have caused an estimated 229 million clinical episodes and Africa accounts for more than 80% of cases and more than 90% of 409 000 deaths, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

That is roughly 370 000 deaths in Africa alone per year and that makes the continent the epicentre of malaria. There are other more than one million adults and children estimated to die every year from HIV/Aids-related causes in Africa alone.

According to available research, HIV is thought to have crossed from chimps to humans in the 1920s in Africa’s Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

They argue that this was as a result of chimps carrying the Simian Immunodeficiency Virus, a virus closely related to HIV, being hunted and eaten by people living in the area or may be people who visited the area.

But then the first cases of what would later become known as Aids were reported in the United States in June 1981.

It remains a mystery how the chimps in DRC transmitted the virus to the USA in 1981 and how the virus later settled in southern African to become its epicentre.

For all we know, the map that was used to represent countries banned from travelling to Europe and the US due to COVID-19, is the same as the map depicting southern Africa as the epicentre of HIV/Aids over the past two decades.

And of course, we cannot question science.

In the recent case, there are two major differences between HIV and COVID-19 pandemic.

For HIV and Aids, Africa did not have a voice and the capacity to initiate and lead the narrative.

Sub-Saharan Africa accepted whatever was provided to it on the epistemological sphere without questioning.

And with COVID-19, mainly the Omicron variant, southern Africa demonstrated leadership and that it is ahead of its game and followed all the protocols to ensure the world was informed and prepared to deal with the new challenge.

In a way it was supposed to be its moment of glory, but alas doom and gloom befell southern Africa with a barrage of travel bans which have become too embarrassing to lift without justification.

As the world grapples with the new variant, to what extent is it ready to accept that all humans have the same genome with minor variations of 0,001% only limited to appearance and health?

The COVID-19 pandemic is supposed to unite us as one endangered people especially having noted that a public health concern that affect one part of the world can potentially affect the rest of the world.

Having all people of Europe and USA vaccinated when the rest of world is not, does not make everyone safe.

Politicising and weaponising public health concerns does not keep everyone safe. It is time to think and operate as one human race.

  • Tapiwa Gomo is a development consultant based in Pretoria, South Africa. He writes here in his personal capacity.

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