Health as a Human Right
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Talking Points on Health as a Human Right
We All Must Respond to Ebola
Statement by US-Africa Network, September 19, 2014
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Ebola center in Sierra Leone. National and international efforts to stop the spread of the epidemic have been insufficient to contain it. Photo credits: ©EC/ECHO/Cyprien Fabre.
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Recent bulletins on Health
April 6, 2021 Africa/Global: People's Vaccine vs. Vaccine Apartheid
http://www.africafocus.org/docs21/vac2104.php
Despite the vast disparity in the pace of vaccinations for Covid-19, currently at over 20% having one dose in North America, 5% in the world, and less in 1% for Africa, the United States, other rich countries, and pharmaceutical companies are still rejecting growing demands to waive patents and transfer technology. See chart below and data by country at https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations.
February 22, 2021 Africa/Global: The Inequality Virus
http://www.africafocus.org/docs21/ineq2102.php
“COVID-19 has been likened to an x-ray, revealing fractures in the
fragile skeleton of the societies we have built. It is exposing
fallacies and falsehoods everywhere: The lie that free markets can
deliver healthcare for all; The fiction that unpaid care work is
not work; The delusion that we live in a post-racist world; The
myth that we are all in the same boat. While we are all floating
on the same sea, it’s clear that some are in super yachts, while
others are clinging to the drifting debris.” – António Guterres,
UN Secretary General
January 26, 2021 Africa/Global: Distant Horizon for Vaccine Equity
http://www.africafocus.org/docs21/vacc2101.php
“I need to be blunt: the world is on the brink of a catastrophic
moral failure – and the price of this failure will be paid with
lives and livelihoods in the world’s poorest countries. Even as
they speak the language of equitable access [to Covid vaccines],
some countries and companies continue to prioritize bilateral
deals, driving up prices and attempting to jump to the front of the
queue. This is wrong. … The situation is compounded by the fact
that most manufacturers have prioritized regulatory approval in
rich countries where the profits are highest, rather than
submitting full dossiers to WHO.” - Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus,
WHO Director-General
November 30, 2020 USA/Africa: Build Back Better on Africa Policy
http://www.africafocus.org/docs20/usa2011.php
“President Trump's overt contempt for Africans is encapsulated in
his famously crass remark about African countries. But the
principal damage to Africa has stemmed from his administration’s
broader policy choices, such as the disastrous rejection of the
World Health Organization (WHO) and the Paris climate accords;
harsh curbs on legal immigration and asylum; and gutting of gender
equality programs. … Nevertheless, the Biden administration should
not merely go back to the pre-Trump status quo. … We argue that an
even more fundamental questioning of U.S. Africa-related policy is
needed.” - Imani Countess and William Minter
September 28, 2020 USA/Global: Millions Displaced by US Post-9/11 Wars
http://www.africafocus.org/docs20/disp2009.php
“Wartime displacement (alongside war deaths and injuries) must be
central to any analysis of the post-9/11 wars and their short- and
long-term consequences. Displacement also must be central to any
possible consideration of the future use of military force by the
United States or others. Ultimately, displacing 37 million—and
perhaps as many as 59 million—raises the question of who bears
responsibility for repairing the damage inflicted on those
displaced.” - Brown University Costs of War Project
September 23, 2020 USA/Global: Overhauling U.S. Foreign Policy
http://www.africafocus.org/docs20/usa2009.php
The most consequential election year in most of our lifetimes has
featured stark crises unspooling against a backdrop of vigorous
activist mobilizations and simmering public outrage. While the
first essential step for progressives is to prevent the reelection
of President Trump, that will not be enough. We need fundamental
change rather than a return to the status quo ante.
August 24, 2020 USA/Global: Divest from Violent Policing and Endless Wars, Part Two
http://www.africafocus.org/docs20/viol2008-2.php
The notion of policing as a war, in which more lethal force will lead to more security, is not a recent development, but is deeply rooted in U.S. history. The police and the military share the country’s legacy of white supremacy and violence against racial others, which has also given rise to mob and individual violence by white civilians. Both domestic law enforcement and the conduct of foreign wars continue to reflect the history of conquest, slavery, and U.S. empire of earlier centuries.
August 24, 2020 USA/Global: Divest from Violent Policing and Endless Wars, Part One
http://www.africafocus.org/docs20/viol2008-1.php
The notion of policing as a war, in which more lethal force will lead to more security, is not a recent development, but is deeply rooted in U.S. history. The police and the military share the country’s legacy of white supremacy and violence against racial others, which has also given rise to mob and individual violence by white civilians. Both domestic law enforcement and the conduct of foreign wars continue to reflect the history of conquest, slavery, and U.S. empire of earlier centuries.
August 3, 2020 Africa/Global: Preventing the Next Pandemic
http://www.africafocus.org/docs20/zoo2008.php
“COVID-19 is just one example of the rising trend of diseases –
from Ebola to MERS to West Nile and Rift Valley fevers – caused by
viruses that have jumped from animal hosts into the human
population. … The rising trend in zoonotic diseases is driven by
the degradation of our natural environment – through land
degradation, wildlife exploitation, resource extraction, climate
change, and other stresses.” - Press release from UN Environment
Programme (UNEP) and International Livestock Research Institute
(ILRI), Nairobi, July 6, 2020
July 20, 2020 South Africa: Covid-19 Response Failing; How to Do Better
http://www.africafocus.org/docs20/sa2007.php
“Covid-19 is a crisis on a crisis – it is a health crisis on top of existing social, economic and political crises in SA. Every faultline is exposed: those with food security, and those who go hungry; those with jobs and the unemployed; those with water and sanitation and those without; those who drive cars and those in crowded public transport; those in well-resourced schools with small classes and those in overcrowded, under-resourced schools; those who use private health care and those who wait in long queues outside under-resourced rural and township clinics.” - Statement by members of the C19 People’s Coalition Health Task Force
June 8, 2020 USA/Global: Racial Pandemic and Viral Pandemic
http://www.africafocus.org/docs20/pan2006.php
The twin pandemics of racism and coronavirus are colliding, in reality and in metaphor. Anti-racism scholar Ibram X. Kendi writes in the Atlantic of “the racial pandemic within the viral pandemic.” And the meme of “America's two deadly viruses” has gone viral on Twitter. But while one is a literal (and new) virus and the other an endemic condition that has persisted over centuries, the scope of each spans the range from local communities to the entire planet.
June 8, 2020 Africa/Global: Thinking Post-Covid-19
http://www.africafocus.org/docs20/post2006.php
“Calls for debt relief—or more timid debt service moratorium—are
drops in the ocean. Something much more ambitious and radical
should be envisaged. This crisis allows us to think big. … [F]or
these exceptional times, we need exceptional solutions. This virus
does offer Africa an opportunity to exercise agency and embark on a
more robust structural transformation process. Building on the
gains of the last few years and the resilience of its population,
there will probably be no better time to fast-track change.” -
Carlos Lopes, former Executive Secretary of the United Nations
Economic Commission for Africa
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