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Sifelani Tsiko in LUSAKA, Zambia
POWERFUL Western countries have been condemned for slapping Africa with travel bans whenever its health experts demonstrate scientific leadership in the fight against global pandemics.
Prof Sikhulile Moyo, a Zimbabwean microbiologist working at the Botswana-Harvard AIDS Institute Partnership and science communication expert Ms Kim Waddilove of the Sub-Saharan African Network for TB/HIV Research Excellence (SANTHE) raised the concern in a joint presentation.
The two public health experts told participants at the Africa Biennial Biosciences Communication (ABBC) symposium that at the height of the Covid-19 epidemic, the rich Western countries rushed to put African countries on travel red lists after they had alerted the world that they had discovered a new variant, known as Omicron.
This variant was responsible for a spike in infections in the region.
The overreaction due to the good surveillance systems in Africa had a damaging impact on the countries that alerted the world about the variant that was spreading.
“The pandemic killed millions, disrupted economies and caused panic. In May 2022, the detection of Omicron was a remarkable achievement by African scientists. Instead of being celebrated, the discovery triggered fear and blame. The fear and overreaction led to misinterpretation and discrimination,” said Dr Waddilove.
“There was misattribution of blame. When there was the outbreak of the Omicron virus, Africa was blamed. Africa was not recognised for its scientific leadership. It got a huge backlash, Africa was blamed, reinforcing colonial stereotypes that the continent is the source of many global pandemics.”
The experts raised concerns when presenting a paper titled: “From Discovery to Discrimination: What the Omicron Travel Bans Teach Us About Science and Misinformation.”
Said Prof Moyo, “I learnt a lot from the Covid pandemic. Mechanisms for communicating discoveries to the public were absent. For any news that came out, scientists were blamed for the discovery.
“It’s important to value our African scientists. We have to understand our political environment. We have to work with our public health officials who have experience and platforms for communication.”
Africa still faces discrimination and unfair treatment as more global pandemics such as Mpox, Chikungunya and others plague the world.
Whenever there is an outbreak, powerful countries scramble to impose travel bans with damaging impacts on the African economies.
“Findings were politicised, distorted and used as a weapon against Africa,” said Waddilove.
“Science does not happen in a vacuum; it requires trust. Science is not only about facts, but about trust. We need to work together – scientists and journalists to fight misinformation and this global injustice against Africa.”
Said Prof Moyo: “We need strong collaboration with public health systems so that we speak and sing from the same hymn book.
“We need to speak to the people in the field of communication. I think we need that balance in the age of infodemics more than ever before.”
To address the problems of misinformation and disinformation, the experts said there was need to strengthen science communication, address global inequities and support Africa’s scientists under fire.
“Travel bans teach us that transparency can be punished, decisions are not informed by data, that misinformation travels faster than science,” said Waddilove.
“Science communication is vital and it’s important to understand that global inequities shape responses.”
Prof Tulio de Oliveira of South Africa and Prof Moyo were later recognised and awarded various prizes for discovering and immediately reporting the omicron variant to WHO.
All this came after the international community paid attention to Africa’s scientific leadership in the fight against global pandemics.
Online Reporter