Bill Gates visited Kenya in November last year and spent most of his time visiting medical and agricultural research institutes, primary health centers and farms. He met with Kenya’s new president, other national authorities as well as regional partners. He stated that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) was committed to support innovations that would improve health and food security in African countries. He announced that his foundation would spend $7billion in the next four years to ‘support’ countries in Africa, through institutions that develop and implement innovative approaches to fight poverty, disease, hunger, and gender inequality. The Gates Foundation has also been funding multilateral organizations working in Africa such as Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the Global Fund that are focused on fighting Cholera, AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
Malaria.
The BMGF has been funding a lot of research aimed at malaria control and elimination in Africa. One of the research consortiums funded by BMGF is ‘Target Malaria’. Target Malaria has been exploring approaches that reduce malaria mosquitoes using genetic modification particularly through gene drive technologies. Their research involves releasing genetically modified mosquitoes into the wild to mate with malaria mosquitoes, with some releases having taken place in African countries. The main aim of these gene drives is to produce genetically modified mosquitoes that can pass a genetic modification on to a high percentage of their offspring, and the modification is established quickly and effectively through a specific population. They focus on reducing female fertility and biasing the sex ratio of mosquito populations.
Coincidentally, as these studies are going on, a new deadly mosquito vector Anopheles stephensi has emerged in Kenya, sounding like a super bug in Sci Fi movies. The Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) that is funded by Bill Gates reported that this new mosquito species is resistant to insecticides and transmits malaria in rural and urban areas. The KEMRI director Sam Kariuki cautioned that this new ‘super’ mosquito poses a serious threat that ‘could reverse all the gains made in the fight against malaria’. He stated that unlike malaria causing mosquitoes, this deadly bug spreads fast to new areas, and can adapt and thrive in different climatic or harsh environmental conditions.
In addition, the Global Fund founded by Bill Gates has been investing in upgrading facilities in Kenyan hospitals with oxygen infrastructure such as cylinders, liquid oxygen and piping to help support the treatment of HIV, TB and Malaria. Additionally, The World Health Organization that receives funding from the Gates foundation, recommended the use of the controversial RTS, S malaria vaccine for children over five months. According to Science four doses offer only 30% protection against severe malaria for no more than 4 years due to its waning efficacy. Kenya’s Ministry of Health is now pushing this vaccine to be given to children around the country.
Notably, safety concerns about this vaccine were raised because children that received this vaccine had a risk of having meningitis 10 times higher than those that received the control vaccine.
In addition, African children suffered febrile seizures during the vaccine pilot trial. This vaccine has a relatively low to modest efficacy, and should not be touted as an effective tool to control malaria, given that it falls way below the WHO threshold of 75% efficacy. It is important to note that the Bill &Melinda Gates Foundation provided catalytic funding for late-stage development of this malaria vaccine between 2001 and 2015, according to WHO.
The question remains, if all these organizations are spending so much on trying to eliminate and control malaria, how effective are their efforts? Clearly, with the emergence of this deadly bug means that African countries may soon be battling severe malaria outbreaks, and that’s why they opted to upgrade the hospitals instead. These conflicting interests demonstrated are not helpful to Africans and may put their lives at risk. So much power is put in the hands of a few decision makers in trying to control and eliminate a disease, and this is evidently worsening the malaria situation in Africa.
Countries are Malaria-Free
40 Countries and territories around the world have been certified malaria-free by the WHO. China was certified malaria-free, a country that had reported 30 million cases annually since the 1940s. The WHO reports that this was from support by the Global Fund (by Bill Gates). The question remains, If other countries successfully eliminated malaria without the use of a low efficacy dangerous vaccine, why are we using it in Africa? Why not emulate the efforts of other successful countries?
Cholera
Africa has been experiencing several cholera outbreaks, and vaccination campaigns that push the use of a single-dose oral vaccine. The WHO recommends three oral cholera vaccines Dukoral®, Shanchol™, and Euvichol®. It is important to note that Shanchol and Euvichol are the only vaccines available through the Global OCV stockpile that is supported by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance funded by Bill Gates. These two vaccines are used in mass vaccination campaigns, and notably, Shanchol was discontinued last year. The company that produces Shanchol decided to stop production because ‘other cholera vaccine manufacturers had already announced to increase supply capacity in years to come’.
That leaves Euvichol, which was developed with support from the BMGF foundation as the only drug prequalified by WHO for use in mass campaign vaccinations. Evidently, the use of this singular vaccine depicts similarities to the reported claims by Professor Renaud Piarroux, a world expert on cholera, who blew the whistle on the cholera scandal in Haiti. According to a European Parliamentary question posed in 2022 (E-002940/2022) citing Professor Piarroux, the BMGF has reportedly used Haiti to create a market for cholera vaccine. Professor Piarroux mentioned that Bill Gates owns cholera vaccine factories in South Korea, and that the large scale trial of the single-dose vaccine was organized using bogus publications and modeling without clarifying that cholera had been eliminated from Haiti two years prior. The aim was to gain support and create a Market for the cholera vaccine. The European parliamentary question expressed concern of the Commission’s announcement in 2018 that it was investing nearly EUR 100 million in health in Africa jointly with the BMGF. In February 2023, The WHO Kenya office announced that Kenya launched its first ever mass Oral Cholera Vaccination in several counties in Nairobi and other remote parts such as Wajir, Garissa & Tana River Counties. This mass vaccination campaign was to ‘contain current and future outbreaks’ according to the Ministry of Health Kenya.
The easiest and cheapest way to prevent current and future cholera outbreaks is by ensuring provision and access to clean safe water and basic sanitation. Modern water treatment and sewage facilities would help eradicate cholera. If governments, donors and multinational organizations would effectively allocate funds to provide access to clean water and sanitation, this would be the most effective way of eradicating cholera. Why has this not been a viable option for discussion? Why the push for vaccines that require patients to have clean drinking water, yet patients can’t access clean water? This would seem like the best sustainable line of defense in fighting cholera.