Decolonising global health in the time of COVID-19

ABSTRACT

The persistent influence of coloniality both from external actors and from within threatens the response to COVID-19 in Africa. This essay presents historical context for the colonial inheritance of modern global health and analyses two controversies related to COVID-19 that illustrate facets of coloniality: comments made by French researchers regarding the testing of BCG vaccine in Africa, and the claims by Madagascar’s president Andry Rajoelina that the country had developed an effective traditional remedy named Covid-Organics. Leveraging both historical sources and contemporary documentary sources, I demonstrate how the currents of exploitation, marginalisation, pathologisation and saviourism rooted in coloniality are manifested via these events. I also discuss responses to coloniality, focussing on the misuse and co-optation of pan-Africanist rhetoric. In particular, I argue that the scandal surrounding Covid-Organics is a reflection of endogenised coloniality, whereby local elites entrench and benefit from inequitable power structures at the intersubjective (rather than trans-national) scale. I conclude with a reflection on the need for equity as a guiding principle to dismantle global health colonialism.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• Africa
• colonialism
• decolonising
• global health

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my deep gratitude to Idriss Fofana, JD, and Amir Mohareb, MD, for their help in refining the ideas presented in this work and for their insightful critiques and edits.

Disclosure statement

The author holds stock ownership in the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline.