By Ejike Anyaduba
It gladdens the heart to listen to an official of the UN say that it is wrong to test the Covid-19 vaccine in Africa. To imagine that the thought was ever harboured at all was enough violation of the dignity of Africa. Why test a vaccine in a continent where the pandemic did not originate or is yet to have as much impact as in America, Asia and Europe?
It has no precedence in history that a vaccine produced to combat a disease, endemic in a region, was taken elsewhere for an efficacy test. The choice of Africa was at once surprising and provocative. Even in matters other than disease control the rule does not apply differently.
The idea of vaccine test in Africa does just not fit. If China where the pandemic started has been rid of it, what of Italy? Have other endemic regions of the west been purged of the disease? The choice of Africa is curious. It has to be supported by unassailable evidence.
Was the impact of the Manhattan Project ordered by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the thick of World War 2, which produced the atomic bomb not tested in the remote desert location near Alamorgodo, New Mexico before use on select locations in Japan?
For the record, the achievement of the Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi and his other colleague on the team of the fission bomb, the Danish, Niels Bohr, made the desired impact because the bombs were properly channeled. Fermi, the 1938 Nobel prize winner was running away from the fascist tyranny of Benito Mussolini in Italy when he took up American citizenship. Alongside his other colleagues on the team they manufactured the fission bomb.
Were the bombs dropped indiscriminately? Were certain considerations not made before they were detonated. Were they not dropped in Japanese cities with highest concentration of military weaponry? Were areas or cities with population density not carefully avoided?
Koyoto, Kokura, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the four cities originally slated to be nuked even though America had only three of the bombs.
Bombing of Koyoto was dropped last minute when it was found out that it hosted more historical monuments than armament. Kokura was good to go, but escaped the fission bomb and, in its place, Nagasaki was hit. Reason. Kokura was obscured by layers of thick clouds and the “Bockscar”, as the B-29 plane was called, could not safely reach its target. The mission commander Asworth promptly redirected to Nagasaki. This is what is called precision bombing even though Hiroshima and Nagasaki still bear the regrettable impact of the two bombs – “little boy” and “fat boy”
The point here is that you apply remedial course of action on area of greatest need and not the other way round. If the atomic bomb was not tested in the US, the authority there would likely not know its level of distortion on impact. Perhaps that explained why Truman never hesitated to hit Emperor Hirohito and his suicidal army for six when Roosevelt suddenly dropped dead and the lot fell on him.
The vaccine should not be applied wrongly. It has to be taken to the area of greatest need. The continents of American, Europe, Asia need it more than Africa. Its efficacy cannot be determined better in Africa which has been barely exposed to the disease.
It is good to let those who are worried about Africa on possible outbreak of the pandemic, and who have since adjusted their charity towards this end, to re-channel elsewhere.
Few African have since lent their voices in condemnation of this blatant racism. They have voiced out strongly against the decision to vaccinate Africans. Football star like Didier Drogba spoke against it so did Samuel Etoo Fil and Demba. The peripatetic public speaker Professor Lumumba did not hold back. Like others he spoke in condemnation. It behooves African political leaders to decline this Greek gift.
Africa won’t be the guinea pig this time.
Ejike Anyaduba wrote in from Abatete, Anambra State
