The Omicron variant has given us a glimpse of an alternative future in which the world might have locked Africa away if the sars-coV-2 virus had been first identified in Africa in 2020. Africa would have become known as the continent of Covid if there had been emergency funding for vaccine development.
We don't know the origins of Omicron, but there is evidence that the variant was circulating in the Netherlands before it was identified in South Africa. The world has been able to respond to the new threat quickly because of the superior level of Preparedness by African scientists. The response has resulted in the shutting out of southern African countries, as well as Nigeria and Egypt, who have had to pay a heavy price in trade and tourism for identifying this variant in such an expeditious manner.
Travel bans are an important way to contain the transmission of Covid-19, but in this case they are merely performative because the variant is already on several continents. The assumption is that the ban is as racist as Africa's inequitable access to vaccines, diagnostics and therapies. It is not true that vaccine hesitancy in Africa is the cause of low vaccine rates. The US, one of the most vaccine-hesitant countries in the world, and with billions of surplus doses, has just under 60% full vaccination coverage, while some countries in Africa have less than 2%.
The failure of the international system and a response driven by domestic politics led to the emergence of another variant. We knew that the delays with intellectual property waivers and the lack of cooperation on sharing technology would leave us. It was going to end in more dangerous ways. Why do we feign surprise now?
It doesn't have to be like this. African countries have decades of experience in fighting diseases such as HIV/Aids, and are using their technology to monitor the virus. Our continent has been left out of the tracking of its spread because it was not called on to contribute.
There is no time to waste. We need to move fast because the virus is moving quickly. African leadership is also needed.
African lives are at stake and it is time for African political leadership to push back. We must be the masters and mistresses of our own destiny and take a stand for equity. Africa can't stay out of history when it has so much at stake.
African states and other low-income countries that want to produce their own vaccines, to develop their testing and sequencing capacity and to contribute to the fight against this virus cannot be stopped by the world. We can't fight this virus alone, that's what the Pandemic has taught us. The South Africans have shown that we can work together to ensure that we don't end up with another variant that could be more deadly than Omicron.
The solutions are simple: we work together, we do not exclude, and we cooperate openly. This is a global problem that requires international cooperation and a greater commitment towards multilateralism. We need to do away with the nationalism that plagues us first, and then we need a global Pandemic Treaty.
Next week, when G7 finance and development leaders meet in solidarity, they will have the opportunity to demonstrate global leadership and solidarity as the next wave of the virus takes hold. We should follow the science, not the politics.
The co-chair of the Africa Union Africa Vaccine Delivery Alliance is a former chief humanitarian of Nigeria.
