Africa: Time to scrutinise WHO vaccines, operations 

Following the allegation that some powerful groups are influencing the World Health Organisation (WHO) and directing its work towards promoting some ideological perspectives that are considered injurious to the health and culture of Africans, leaders of the continent should order critical examination of the services by the global health body to determine the safety or otherwise for their people.

Besides, African leaders should be wary of the planned Pandemic Treaty and Modification of the international health regulations by the WHO that will be discussed at the 77th World Health Assembly that will be held in Geneva, Switzerland this week.

The WHO recently released a report stating that, according to its 2023 report, Nigeria ranks first on the list of the top 20 zero-dose countries, with over 2.3 million estimated zero-dose children (about 16 per cent of the global total). Zero-dose children are defined as those who lack access to or are never reached by routine immunisation and vaccination services. The report was released ahead of the World Health Assembly, which will be held in Switzerland from May 27 to June 1, 2024.

Considering the WHO’s response to recent disease outbreaks worldwide and the numerous controversies surrounding its vaccination and health statistics, it is difficult not to question these latest vaccination statistics in Nigeria. In principle, vaccination is one of the wonders of modern medicine in the 21st century. It is a simple, safe, and effective way of protecting the body from harmful diseases.

Vaccines have played a significant role in reducing the fatality rates of diseases such as measles, chickenpox, tuberculosis, and several others. However, the WHO has recently come under scrutiny for allegedly deviating from its health mandate and promoting vaccines that cause infertility. The body is also alleged to be involved in LGBT issues, population control, abortion, teen sexual rights, teen masturbation, and transgenderism, particularly in African countries.

Formally founded on April 7, 1948, under the United Nations to promote international health care and improve access to essential medicines and health products worldwide, the WHO has enjoyed decades of success and global recognition. As an arm of the United Nations, the global health body is supposed to educate and advise countries on health and disease prevention programmes worldwide. Unfortunately, it has been criticised for being influenced by a narrow Western ideological perspective, prioritising the funding and promotion of controversial issues such as vaccines causing infertility, LGBT rights, abortion and others in Nigeria and other African countries.

To achieve these objectives, the WHO is significantly funded by pro-LGBT and pro-abortion organisations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Ford Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Marie Stopes International, Rutgers, and International Planned Parenthood Federation. These groups provide the WHO with specific funding, directing its work toward their intended purposes. Consequently, the views of many countries have very little impact on the actual operations of the WHO, leading to a clear erosion of their national sovereignty.

It is alleged that the WHO’s vaccination in Nigeria is unsafe and deadly. A few weeks ago, the Global Prolife Alliance (GPA) petitioned the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, concerning the recent introduction by the WHO of routine malaria vaccination in Nigeria and other African countries. The group noted that the WHO endorsed the first vaccine based on the initial two years of a four-year pilot study, raising concerns about the transparency of the WHO regarding the vaccine’s safety.

According to the group, “recent data from clinical trials associated the vaccine with increased risks, including an elevated risk of clinical malaria after four years, a tenfold increased risk of cerebral meningitis, an increased risk of cerebral malaria, and a higher risk of death, especially among female children.” Consequently, the group advised that a precautionary approach should be taken to ensure safety and the strict observance of ethical standards under the 2014 WHO Policy Document.

It should be recalled that at the height of the ravaging COVID-19 pandemic, the WHO endorsed policies such as lockdowns that it had previously acknowledged to cause significant collateral harm, disproportionately affecting low-income populations and countries in Africa.

The lockdown regulations were a class-based and unscientific instrument, disproportionately harmful to lower-income people and useless for crowded informal settings, such as in urban parts of Africa. At the same time, African governments were subjected to intense pressure to merely adhere to protocols formulated outside the continent, disregarding their demographic, economic, and climatic contexts.

This rendered them powerless on public health matters in their jurisdictions, which was tantamount to eroding their health sovereignty with predictable and harmful consequences. The same WHO discouraged the use of affordable repurposed drugs while promoting new drugs under Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The global body also promoted mass and often mandatory vaccination against COVID-19 for African populations, known to be at very low risk due to their young age and existing immunity, thereby diverting resources from malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and other urgent health problems on the continent, and violating the right to informed consent.

The global health organisation also partakes in the funding of what has come to be known as sexualisation of school pupils. For example, in 2016, the WHO’s European Office issued standards for Comprehensive Sexuality Education that deemed “the right to explore gender identities” appropriate for children aged 0-4 years and the right of children to have sex. School pupils in open classrooms are required to touch each other’s genitals, saying, “I like you.”

The pupils are also expected to touch each other’s private parts and find out the differences in their respective private parts. Under the Youth Peer Sexuality Education Training Guide/Toolkit, funded by the WHO and used in many public secondary schools in Nigeria, the students are told to share with other students with whom they feel more comfortable things like: “Your sexual fantasies (fantasies)”, “Your feelings about oral sex (oral)”, “Whether you enjoy erotic material (X)”, “Whether you have fantasised about a homosexual relationship (gay-fan)”, and “Whether you have had a homosexual relationship (gay-exp).”

But the most feared and worrisome issue is the WHO’s Pandemic Treaty. Now, widespread opposition is being fueled by growing suspicion that the proposed Pandemic Treaty and the modification of International Health Regulations, which would be deliberated on at the 77th World Health Assembly would give the WHO unnecessary powers to dictate and impose obnoxious health policies on nations. Under the Pandemic Treaty, the WHO would be empowered to tell countries to lock down and close businesses, schools, pubs, churches, and mosques.

We would be forced to take injections, whether we want to or not. We would be forced to wear masks again. We would be forced to do whatever the WHO tells us to do, including restricting our liberties. This is why some countries opposed to the proposed Pandemic Treaty are rebelling now. For example, massive rallies are being held in Japan, with tens of thousands of citizens taking to the streets protesting Japanese ratification of the upcoming Pandemic agreement.

It is gladdening that Africa is opposed to the proposed Pandemic Treaty. For example, the Pan-African Epidemic and Pandemic Working Group, a network of senior African academics from a variety of disciplines committed to advocating for sound public health policies at the national, regional, and global levels, has recently alerted the African Union (AU) to table a motion to postpone the votes for the draft WHO Pandemic Treaty and amendments to the health regulations. According to the group, these instruments were designed to provide the WHO with new and greater powers.

More specifically, they would give the Director-General the authority to personally declare a public health emergency of international concern and, thereafter, exercise unprecedented sweeping powers over all state parties to the proposed instruments. The pandemic agreement will pave the way for the WHO to take over jurisdiction of everything in the world under the pretext that climate change, animals, plants, water systems, and ecosystems are all central to health.

In addition to that, it will remove human rights protections, enforce censorship and digital passports, require governments to push a single ‘official’ narrative and enable the WHO to declare ‘pandemics’ on its whims and caprices.

Given the foregoing, we call on Nigeria and other countries in the African Union (AU) to sift the activities of the WHO in Africa in the light of African cultural heritage. Certainly, the sexualisation of school pupils is antithetical to African cultural heritage and philosophical convictions.
LGBT is illegal in Nigeria and many African countries.

It has no respect for the religious and philosophical convictions of the African people and, therefore, cannot be imported into Africa. Laws are made in consonance with the values of a people. Every country is interested in protecting what it holds dear or its cherished values. LGBT is a complete break from African civilisation.

As the World Health Assembly holds in Switzerland, we urge African countries to desist from voting at the summit so as not to assent to the proposed Pandemic Treaty. The AU should take appropriate steps and measures to ensure that the rights of African countries are affirmed and respected so that they will freely prepare their context-sensitive vaccines and approaches to public health crises.

We urge the AU to facilitate a transparent and accountable review of the role of Western-based international governmental and non-governmental health entities in the WHO’s operations and policies. Such a review must ensure the full participation of African countries, as they are the bearers of the major health burdens.