COVID 19 Vaccine Trials in Africa: The Ethics of Clinical Trials

The COVID-19 is an extremely complex pandemic. It became the greatest public health threat to the world because it has affected individuals in different countries and regions. As many of the COVID-19 vaccine trials started a few months ago, the controversial question was to know if African sites should be central to COVID-19 vaccine trial site mapping. The comments of two French doctors in early April 2020 stating that the vaccine trials should be done in Africa because of the low number of confirmed cases started the controversy. Given the long history of medical racism experienced by most African countries, these types of remarks provoked global outrage. Although testing COVID 19 vaccines in the continent is in the interest of public health, it raises many questions on the ethics of clinical trials. In this presentation, I will discuss the history of clinical trials in Africa. Then, I will present some of the root causes of this issue. Finally, I will address one way to solve this issue.

Christiana Tembo, Electrical and Electronics Engineering ‘21

Christiana Tembo was born in Kinshasa, but spent most of her childhood in the small village of Muanda in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She came to the United States in 2016 and considers herself as a first-generation student. Christiana speaks three different languages: French, Lingala, and English. Although she has been in the United States for almost 4 years, Christiana has always been preoccupied and concerned about the issues happening in the African continent, especially during the COVID 19 pandemic. Christiana is currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering. She is the president of the National Society of Black Engineers at Seattle University and an ambassador for diversity in STEM. One of Christiana’s missions is to advocate for women all over the world by breaking stereotypes and misconceptions people have about women in the STEM field.