Build the Ebola database in Africa

From Ebola to COVID-19: what explains institutionalized manias and the ultimate preference for non-optimal solutions in global health governance?

“…For evidence, in building capacity and utility, local researchers are hardly funded or put in charge of the planned research/innovation platforms. Rather, helicopter research is preferred where blood samples of Africans are taken away for research to publish in global North institutions and advance the careers of some scholars at the expense of local scientists (Conton, 2017). There are varieties of ways through which governments relinquish the power to change institutions to external actors.…”

“…Further, developing economies are ritualistically seen as centers of packaging, distribution and consumption of generics but not where value is added to pharmaceutical manufacturing and big R&D spending (Conton, 2017;Stiglitz and Jayadev, 2010;Ahen and Salo-Ahen, 2018). For Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO (ex Ufficio), "Ebola emerged nearly forty years ago.…”

“…More prominently, the paper problematizes how the maniacal exploitation of power asymmetries in global health governance perpetuates global health inequality. This study was conducted before and after the 2014 Ebola epidemic (Conton, 2017;Wilkinson and Leach, 2015;Stiglitz, 2014) and before and during the current COVID-19 outbreak. Both outbreaks were preceded by the 2007-early 2009 financial crisis (Crotty, 2009).…”

Patient-centric research in the time of COVID-19: conducting ethical COVID-19 research in Africa

“…History suggests that times of crisis in Africa are often exploited for unethical collection and use of samples and data, and African research participants can become targets of ethics dumping-where researchers conduct studies ethically unacceptable in their home countries in a low-regulation environment. 6 7 Unethical data/biospecimen collection practices also occurred under cover of humanitarian aid, for example, during the West African Ebola crisis 8 : Ebola data remain off-Continent in the Infectious Diseases Data Observatory in the UK, 9 and African-authored research using data from the Ebola crisis is hard to find. 10 Understanding COVID-19 in African patients through research is urgently needed for effective healthcare tailored to African context and needs.…”

Editorial

“…The research agenda that has been mapped out is itself fertile ground to consider the continuing relevance of local spaces in global biomedical research agenda. Elsewhere, those who argue for the Ebola database constituted after the Ebola epidemic in West Africa between 2014 and 2016 to be localised within Africa suggest that there is an inseparable link between 'local' control and legitimacy (Conton 2017). An initiative by the World Health Organization to develop a blueprint material transfer agreement (MTA) web-based tool appears to be an attempt to sustain some form of 'local' control.…”