A Kenyan court initially suspended the country’s agreement after a legal challenge seeking protection of patient privacy.
Arnold Kavaarpuo, the executive director of the Data Protection Commission of Ghana, told the BBC that the government in Accra opposed the deal for the same reasons.
“We had concerns about the scope and breadth of data that was required,” he said.
“It was us who produced the data and passed it on to the US authorities, and there is no way to go back and forth when it comes to the protection of Ghanaian data and the sovereignty of Ghana.
“And from our point of view,” he added, “once the information got out of Ghana’s borders, we had no authority over what happened to it.”
Zimbabwe also cited concerns about requests for medical data, which may have been shared with US pharmaceutical companies, as a reason for rejecting the deal.
There were no guarantees that drugs or vaccines produced from the virus would be available to its people, a government spokesman said, pointing out that the WHO already has a system in place for members to share information and benefit from any future pandemic treatments.
African countries have transferred health information through existing programs including USAID and Pepfar, which is the largest American program to deal with HIV and Aids.
The US insists that sharing data and specimens is key to further scientific progress and cooperation.
And a State Department spokesman said the materials requested were the same aggregated and de-identified data that had been used for years in the fight against infectious diseases.
What has changed is the context, says Nelson Aghogho Evaborhene, a PhD fellow in global health management at the University of Roskilde in Denmark.
“It was an unequal relationship, but it was politically tolerated,” he said, “because you could sell it to the people at home as a self-serving need to improve the health service.”
“But now it’s changed a lot, because it’s about greater sharing.”
Many African nations have also learned lessons from Covid, as the race to find a vaccine proved the importance of pathogen data but left the continent struggling to find doses for its population.
“I think one of our biggest opportunities as Africa,” said Aggrey Aluso, executive director of the Resilience Action Network Africa (Rana), “is the fact that we have valuable information that can help build a global health security ecosystem.”
Rana joined more than 50 civil society organizations in signing an open letter warning African leaders that US words could be guided by African national or regional interests, a view shared by South Africa.
“To be honest, no self-respecting nation on Earth should admit it [two requests],” South Africa’s Health Minister Dr. Aaron Motsoaledi told the BBC.
“That [the US] they will get the pathogen if there is an epidemic or epidemic in their area.
“And they will also give them the genome for life. But the US will give them money for five years.”
The debate on health dialogue has gained momentum in recent weeks following the outbreak of a new Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
