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across Africa and outside Africa met
virtually over a four-day period to
formulate the Continental Food Safety
Strategy for Africa (3). The next steps
will be to develop plans to implement
the Strategy. There will certainly be
challenges, such as the generation
and availability of scientifically robust
data to inform the development
of risk-based regulations and to
assist with harmonization of food
safety standards across the region;
laboratory and technical capacity;
translating Risk Analysis theory
into practice and more. Lack of
access to scientific journals, due to
costs of joining several databases
has been an impediment in many
African universities for years. The
announcement by IAFP that the
Journal of Food Protection will
become open access, is therefore
very warmly received.
In 2018, a landmark agreement
was drafted on Establishing the
African Continental Free Trade Area
(AfCFTA). The overall mandate of
the AfCFTA is to create a single
continental market with a combined
GDP of approximately US$ 3.4 trillion.
It is the largest free trade area in the
world, with its main objectives to help
unlock Africa's economic potential
and boost intra-regional trade, by
advancing trade in value-added
production across all service sectors
of the African Economy. AfCFTA was
launched in January 2021 (4).
A second significant development
was the inaugural food safety conference
of the African Continental
Association for Food Protection
(ACAFP - an affiliate of IAFP), held
on 10-11 November 2021, with the
theme " Food Safety in Africa: Past,
Current and the Future " (1). The
Board and Directors of ACAFP are
committed to grow the organization
and are already planning the next
conference, to be held in November
2023.
COVID-19, vaccines and inequity
The world has experienced a
devastating pandemic, which has
claimed the lives of almost 6.5
million people, by 31 August, 2022
according to John Hopkins University
& Medicine (22). Developing
countries bore the greatest brunt of
not only the outbreak, but the lack
22
of access to vaccines, which were
hoarded by the developed world.
Africa is no exception. Additionally,
SA and its scientists were " punished "
for identifying the Omicron variant,
in the form of an immediate travel
ban imposed on SA and several of
its neighbors, by the UK, USA and
Europe in particular. This sparked
much outrage in the country, the rest
of Africa and indeed at UN level (9,
17, 25, 49). The travel ban occurred
in November 2021, which was the
beginning of summer in SA i.e., from
October to March and therefore,
in the tourist season. The return of
travel to SA shores was to assist
the country and its tourism industry,
which provides thousands of jobs, to
recover economically to some extent.
The ban caused an abrupt grounding
of flights, with an estimated loss to
the tourism sector of US$ 10 million
for every week that flights were
suspended from key tourist markets.
The ban was scientifically unjustified
and was purely a political decision,
which caused continued damage to
the SA economy, when the omicron
variant was in fact already present
in those countries, as we all know
that viruses do not respect country
borders (6). Antonio Guterres,
Secretary-General of the UN called
the travel ban " travel apartheid " (27)
and it also resulted in the unintended
consequence of disrupting the
importation of essential reagents for
important research on SARS-CoV-2.
Vaccine hoarding by the wealthy
countries, to a very significant
disadvantage to most African
countries became apparent soon
in the vaccine race. It was branded
" vaccine apartheid " by several
authors (8) as well as the UN Special
Rapporteur on contemporary forms of
racism, E. Tendayi Achiume (40), with
only 17.94% people in low income
countries receiving at least one doze
of the vaccine in contrast to 72.09%
people in high income countries at
June 2022. The Director-General
of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom
Ghebreyesus called it a " catastrophic
moral failure " (11).
What these inequalities and
unfortunate decisions have done
however, is to show just how
vulnerable Africa is when it depends
on multilateral agreements and
cooperation for assistance. These
dissolved almost overnight and
exposed the continent's vulnerability,
bringing home the message loud
and clear to Africa that it needs to
fend for itself; that this dependence
on other countries sustains a lack
of confidence in the continent, alas
not only from outside Africa, but also
from within the continent (20). Africa
needs to look inwardly to find its own
solutions and learn to celebrate its
own greatness and become selfsufficient.
This
is a golden opportunity
for African leaders to heed the
lessons learned from the COVID-19
pandemic and act now! If not, Africa
will fail to address future infectious
disease and food safety threats
and will remain dependent on the
developed world for assistance. The
continent will be unable to fulfill the
development goals listed in the AU
Agenda 2063 i.e., " The Africa We
Want " - " An integrated, prosperous
and peaceful Africa, driven by its
own citizens, representing a dynamic
force in the international arena "
(2). The possibilities are endless
and to illustrate, in July 2021 an
mRNA technology transfer hub
was established in SA, with the
first six African countries chosen to
receive this technology. This showed
that those countries are ready
and equipped with the necessary
skills to proceed with local vaccine
production, once intellectual property
rights would be liberated (8).
Inequities in research
Tulio de Oliveira, a researcher
in SA who has been at the forefront
of SARS-CoV-2 genomic surveillance
and who was part of the team that
identified the Omicron variant, stated
that it is time that researchers in
Africa and other Low and Middle
Income Countries (LMIC) are recognized
for their scientific discoveries
(16). High Income Countries have
discriminated for centuries against
the work of African scientists, often
not giving appropriate recognition to
African researchers when part of an
international team. To this end, The
Lancet has committed to rejecting
papers with data from Africa that fail
to acknowledge African collaborators
(42). In addition, at the 7th World
Conference on Research Integrity,
held for the first time in Africa in May/
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Food Protection Trends - November/December 2022

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