COVID-19 shattered trust between Africa and the wealthy countries that hoarded vaccines. So what will it take to rebuild that trust? Acknowledgment would be a good start, said the World Health Organization’s Dr. Ayoade Alakija, who kicked off the first day of Devex’s World Health Assembly discussions with harsh words for those countries and some very personal recollections of Africa’s health system.
“Had COVID started in Africa, it became very clear that the world would’ve locked us away and thrown away the key, because we were clearly considered last in line,” WHO’s special envoy for the ACT-Accelerator said at the InterContinental Hotel on the sidelines of WHA yesterday.
“There’s some serious structural, systemic issues of course that have led to this, and as we begin to talk about trust and the erosion of trust, we must, must, must acknowledge those failures of the past.”