- Professors propose testing drugs in Africa because people there ‘are exposed, and don’t protect themselves’
- WHO regional director describes comments as ‘deeply upsetting’, while former soccer star Didier Drogba calls it ‘disgusting’
The heads of the World Health Organisation's regional office for Africa and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention have described suggestions made by two French doctors that a potential vaccine for the coronavirus be tested in Africa as "deeply upsetting" and "unfortunate".
Speaking on French television channel LCI on Wednesday, Professors Jean-Paul Mira and Camille Locht said the drug should be tested first in Africa "where there are no masks, no treatment, no intensive care".
Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO regional director for Africa, said on Saturday she was "very surprised" by the "deeply upsetting" comments.
"All research including on Covid-19 in this global crisis must be ethical and based on principles," she said.
Dr John Nkengasong, the head of the Africa CDC, agreed, saying his organisation strongly condemned the "very unfortunate remarks".
"The Africa CDC and WHO will work closely to ensure that clinical trials on Covid-19 in Africa are carried out using the most ethical and scientific principles," he said.
In the television report, Mira, who is the head of resuscitation services at Cochin Hospital in Paris, asked: "Shouldn't we do this study in Africa, where there are no masks, no treatment, no resuscitation, a bit like some studies on Aids, where among prostitutes, we try things, because they are exposed, and they don't protect themselves. What do you think?"
Locht, who is director of research at the French Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm), replied: "You are right. We're thinking in parallel to a study in Africa precisely to make this same type of approach. I think there is a call for tenders that was released or that will be released."
The doctors were referring to the BCG tuberculosis vaccine, which is being trialled in some European countries and Australia, as a possible antidote to the coronavirus.
Between the television report and the comments by the WHO and Africa CDC chiefs, Inserm said on Twitter on Friday that a truncated video taken from an interview on LCI had been erroneously misinterpreted on social media, saying the vaccine was currently being trialled only in Europe and Australia.
Mira, nevertheless, apologised, saying: "I want to present all my apologies to those who were hurt, shocked and felt insulted by the remarks that I clumsily expressed on LCI this week."
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But that was not enough for some on social media, including several major names from the world of African football, like former greats Ivorian Didier Drogba and Cameroon Samuel Eto'o, and current players Senegalese Demba Ba and Ghanaian Christian Atsu, all of whom branded the comments as racist.
"Africa isn't a testing lab. I would like to vividly denounce those demeaning, false and, most of all, deeply racist words," retired Chelsea striker Drogba said on Twitter.
"Do not take African people as human guinea pigs! It's disgusting."
The French anti-racism charity SOS Racisme took a similar view, saying it was "outraged by remarks made by two doctors on LCI who agree on air on the project to use Africans as guinea pigs to test vaccines against the Covid-19 virus".
The group also described the comparison with Aids and prostitutes as "problematic" and "unwelcome".
The Moroccan Lawyers Club, meanwhile, threatened to file a racial defamation lawsuit against the professors, saying their comments were "hateful and racist" and that "Africans are not laboratory rats".
Adopting a more conciliatory tone, Jean-Jacques Muyembe, who heads the national biological research institute of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, said his country was ready and willing to participate in any trials for a possible coronavirus vaccine.
"We've been chosen to conduct these tests. We're candidates," he said. "The only way to control (the coronavirus) will be a vaccine, just like Ebola. It was a vaccine that helped us end the Ebola epidemic."
South Africa recently announced that it had joined a WHO-led "solidarity trial" designed to compare medical treatments for Covid-19 and identify the most effective.
Among the drugs being tested are remdesivir, which also featured in a trial to find an Ebola vaccine, lopinavir/ritonavir, which is a licensed treatment for HIV/Aids, and chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, which are used to treat malaria and rheumatism.
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