Ómicron puts Africa on the map

Ómicron is more than just a covid variant containing 30 dangerous mutations. It is a symbol of the world we live in: unfair, unequal and stupid. We are an animal species galloping towards extinction. They will not kill us virus, the climate change or one nuclear warIt will be done by a predatory system based on making money in the short term, regardless of the means and consequences.

The vaccination advances in the EU with four featured countries on the full guideline: Portugal, Malta, Iceland and Spain. Israel tops the list of those who are delivering the third dose (43.9%). It is not only a health issue. As long as the virus continues to circulate, it does not matter under which letter of the Greek alphabet, there will be no way out of the crisis. The difficulties of trade will generate a shortage of products, and the shortage, real or imagined, will cause inflation.

At vaccination world map there is a hole: Africa, a continent that is barely reported beyond migration, a cliché that hides our involvement in the wars they suffer and in the exploitation of their wealth. It is false that they are a security threat. Nine out of ten sub-Saharan Africans who migrate do so within Africa, looking for work near their country. Only 10% assume the risk of trying to reach Europe through the Sahara and the Mediterranean.

In the Africa ignored by vaccines Three categories are distinguished: Magreb (with Morocco and Tunisia with 65.6% and 51.2% of vaccinated, respectively); Botswana, a tourist paradise (36.8%), and the rest. The Democratic Republic of Congo – a victim of wars, logging of forests, wild mining and diseases such as Ebola – could be a breeding ground for new variants of the covid. In a country that is five times the size of Spain, 0.1% are vaccinated.

World emergency or hysteria

In South Africa, to which we have endorsed the paternity of omicron for being the first to warn of its existence, 28% are vaccinated. The data of its severity in this country does not help us to know if we are facing a global emergency or in the middle of hysteria because the 20% of their adults have AIDS. Son immunosuppressed. It does not matter that in the West we get the third vaccine, or a fourth in spring with a new one adapted to omicron, if the poorest countries continue to be left to their fate. The virus tries to survive through the unvaccinated. They are the main transmitters.

There will be no global security without health solidarityEither through a massive distribution of vaccines or by the suspension, temporary or not, of patents. These days the voice of pharmaceutical companies is heard a lot. We should not forget that for them this is a business, not a humanitarian act. We are your captive market. Fear multiplies its benefits.

Besides of trouble from distribution in Africa, which is real, science faces a triple obstacle: hoaxes, superstitions and a lousy historical experience with white man’s medicine. Some drug companies used tribes like guinea pigs in their experiments in the 20th century. There are stories that are passed from generation to generation.

Refuse vaccines in USA is part of a ultra-conservative political militancy. It is your ideological brand. It also happens with masks, raised to symbolize oppression. In Europe, anti-vaccines are a minority, a mixture of extreme rightism, religious blindness and fear of a changing world from which they feel expelled.

Some deniers they argue that the vaccines are not sufficiently proven while they put all kinds of miracle potions against problems they do not have. A third sector, with growing political influence, rejects the confinements and the imposition of the covid passport. They are the ones who feed the new extreme rights.

How to fight hoaxes

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If this happens in the rich world that has information and means to contrast, How to combat hoaxes in Africa? Many women living in rural areas believe that vaccines cause sterility. It is a mantra that flies by word of mouth. Its social function is based on reproduction, on being useful to the community ensuring survival.

Covid and its variants represent a warning about the climate catastrophe underway. Not only will there be an effect on the temperatures and the rise in the seas, it poses a danger of new diseases or the resurrection of those already defeated. The human race is at stake. There are no first, second or third seats on this Titanic. We are all saved or none.

Reference-www.elperiodico.com

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