GET Journal of Biosecurity and One Health
GET Journal of Biosecurity and One Health (2023)
From HIV/AIDS through Ebola to
COVID-19: The Unlearnt Lessons
from Epidemics in Africa: A
Personal Perspective
Authors: Tangwa GB, PhD, FCAS, FAAS
Cameroon Bioethics Initiative (CAMBIN)/University of Yaounde 1, Cameroon
ORCID ID: 0000-0003-0062-8106
GET Journal of Biosecurity and One Health, Volume 2, Issue 1, May 2023, Pages 1-6.
Article Keywords: Africa; Epidemics; Colonialism; Exploitation.
Affiliations +
Affiliations +
Authors: Tangwa GB, PhD, FCAS, FAAS
Cameroon Bioethics Initiative (CAMBIN)/University of Yaounde 1, Cameroon
ORCID ID: 0000–0003–0062–8106
DOI
Journal Volume & Issue
Volume 2, Issue 1
Abstract
Within the four decades spanning the 1980s to the year 2020 and counting, the continent of Africa has witnessed many deadly epidemics, notable among which are HIV/AIDS, Ebola, and COVID-19. For anyone in Africa who has lived through these epidemics and critically observed their impacts on the continent, it is evidently clear that the lessons that should be learned from them have not yet been fully learned. These unlearned lessons are related without being limited to the political, economic, healthcare, and ethical domains.
The events accompanying COVID-19, globally and on the African continent, have underscored these lessons that must be learned, or else the continent has no future except as an entity of colonial and global exploitation. In this article, I propose to highlight and briefly
discuss some of these lessons that should be learned, failing which we, Africans, need to be studied as a strange species of human beings, completely devoid of rational self-interest, inhabiting the most endowed continent on planet Earth, without being aware of it.