As world superpowers race to champion the discovery of vaccines to restrain SARS-Cov-2, the road has been humpy. In April 2020, two French doctors suggested that a new COVID-19 vaccine could be tested in Africa.

The remarks sparked outrage in and outside the continent and Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director General at the World Health Organization, condemning the comments as racist saying “Africa can’t and won’t be a testing ground for any vaccine”.

In 2017, Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa raised awareness on the tendency of some unscrupulous global corporations to reduce drug launch costs and avoid regulatory constraints by testing new pharmaceuticals in developing countries.

During an interview with The Guardian six years earlier, Ames Dhai, director of the Steve Biko Centre for Bioethics at South Africa’s Wits University said, “Less stringent ethical review, anticipated under-reporting of side effects, and the lower risk of litigation make carrying out research in the developing world less demanding.”  

Nnimmo Bassey, the right livelihood award winning Nigerian environmental activist, whose home country was ravaged by massive exploitative drug tests for decades, vowed to stand tall against the Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) applications used in maize and cassava to alter the genes of consumers.

“We are readying for the epic fights ahead against dangerous, needless, and untested technology. We shall never be guinea pigs!” Bassey was quoted to have said.

The continental food alliance implicated the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as the brain behind much of the GM research in Africa, and have invested millions of dollars into the development of GM maize, GM cotton, and GM cassava.

Despite the massive investment, the alliance says, the positive impact of GMOs was yet to be seen in the continent. The food technology has deepened inequalities instead and arguably the reason Africa is fragmented.

Worryingly, the second generation of the technology is being pushed into Africa, “bringing untold suffering to our peoples,” Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa wrote.

According to The Independent, a British newspaper, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation conspired with pharmaceutical companies allegedly carrying out clinical trials in developing countries without adequate informed consent of those being tested.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in collaboration with GAVI are currently at the forefront on distributing vaccines with specification of what vaccines go to which continent.

The remarks by the two French doctors were shocking but were also a reminder that what were considered conspiracy theories could be effected. Fear gripped the continent and the idea of testing the vaccines was opposed outright.

On January 15, 2021, that fear has been reinforced after 23 people died in Norway days after receiving doses of COVID-19 vaccines manufactured by Pfizer BionTech, an American pharmaceutical company according to report by The New York Post. The incident came a week after two home nursing patients died after receiving the vaccine shots.

Despite the trail of casualties, medical experts see little (if any) risk in using the vaccines. “We’re not alarmed by this,” Steinar Madsen, medical director with Norwegian Medicines Agency was quoted to have said. “It is quite clear that these vaccines have very little risk, with small exception for frailest patients.”

A Pfizer official told the publication that they were “aware of reported deaths” after the administration of their vaccine in Norway and was working with the medical agency in the country “to gather all the relevant information.”

The incident has sent a shockwave across Africa, where about 270 million doses of vaccines, reportedly procured by continental bloc the African Union are expected to arrive, prompting mixed reactions on and offline.

“The problem with these vaccines is that most of them are undergoing testing despite the rush to roll them out as “safe and secure” by manufacturers. To me the vaccines are still a huge health gamble,” said a Juba-based social commentator Roi Gold.

Tut Kur, a clinical assistant in his words said “It’s too early to take it. Here in Africa we don’t need it (the vaccines) as urgently as in Europe, Asia, and America.”

World Doctors Alliance, a non-profit umbrella of medical professionals drafted a petition in October 2020 demystifying threats of coronavirus and control measures put in place to reduce the spread of the virus.

The alliance says a rushed vaccine is clearly not in the public’s best interest and indemnifying vaccine manufacturers against all liability is also clearly not in the public’s best interest. By time of writing, the petition has received over 66,000 signatures.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, American Physician told CNN’s Chris Cuomo that “We are not sure at this point whether the vaccines protect you against getting infected.”