Last week, officials at the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) announced that health authorities in Guinea-Bissau had moved to halt a controversial study which would have used unvaccinated infants as lab rats. The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), however, insisted the trial was still on.
That wasn’t all US health authorities had to say. In a bizarre outburst, the HHS told Futurism that the Africa CDC was a “fake and powerless organization,” and insisted that it was “not a reliable source” for information. During a press meeting on Thursday, director-general of the Africa CDC Jean Kaseya hit back.
“Let me tell you: we are not an NGO,” Kaseya said defiantly. “We are not a UN organization. We are the convening power in Africa. The mandate [is] given to us by all 55 African heads of state and government.”
“People can meet in the US, people can meet in Europe,” Kaseya continued, likely referencing leaked emails between HHS officials and Danish researchers to push the vaccine trial in Guinea-Bissau. “If we are not there, they are wasting their time.”
Kaseya also made it clear that no government has the right to impose experiments on the people of Guinea-Bissau.
“Africa CDC is respecting and supporting the sovereignty of the country,” the official continued. “It’s not Africa CDC that will say, ‘this clinical trial will take place or not.’ It’s not any other international body that will come to say, ‘this clinical trial will take place or not.’ It’s not a foreign country that will come and say, ‘this one will take place.’ It’s the sovereignty of the country.”
Though the HHS evidently thinks it has the power to push dangerous vaccines experiments on African countries, the reality isn’t so simple. According to the Africa CDC’s guidelines, any vaccine trial that doesn’t receive a written authorization from the country’s National Medicines Regulatory Authority is illegal. Likewise, it must have approval from the National Ethics Committee, as well as a local institutional review board at each site where the trial is to take place.
On top of all that, any trial must also have explicit approval from the country’s Ministry of Health — granting officials in Guinea-Bissau the power to functionally veto any experiment the government doesn’t support.
Kaseya emphasized the importance of exercising sovereignty over African public health. “Our vision is not coming from Western countries,” he said. “Our vision is coming from Africa, shaped by African leadership, based on African realities.”
In an interview with the Guardian, Abdulhammad Babatunde, a doctor and global health researcher in Nigeria, said that it’s “very important to fund research that Africans actually want.”
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