08 ISSUE II
JANUARY 2025
JANUARY 2025
How Global Healthcare Systems Function?
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the world repeated many of the same mistakes made during the AIDS crisis.
By Belinda Sanchez
As evolutionary biologist Rob Wallace tells it, ongoing land exploitation and deforestation continually expose humanity to the risk of contracting new viruses and diseases from the natural world. Take, for example, southeast Cameroon in the early 20th century, during French and German colonization. The colonial powers exploited the local population for labor, so much so that they had to import additional African workers to hunt and butcher chimpanzees for meat. Handling and consuming this meat exposed the laborers to the simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), which eventually evolved into HIV, according to Wallace.
His account highlights a chilling discovery: by 2016, scientists had identified two chimpanzees in the same region carrying an SIV strain closely related to HIV-1. More recently, the emergence of COVID-19 in central China believed to have originated from bats, is another stark reminder of how human activity continues to foster the spread of zoonotic diseases.
Wallace is one of the central figures in director Rehad Desai’s documentary “Time of Pandemics.” The film begins against the backdrop of environmental destruction. It confronts viewers with the stark reality of humanity's exploitation of the environment, often driven by greed, leading to the transmission of viruses from animals to humans.
“Time of Pandemics” initially focuses on clinical trials in South Africa for a HIV-vaccine that promised to end new AIDS infections, especially the work of Glenda Gray, a doctor and researcher who led some of these clinical trials and active in AIDS social movements. Desai is based there. HIV vaccine clinical trials offered a glimmer of hope, with the potential to significantly improve the health outcomes of individuals, particularly those from low- and middle-income countries living with HIV. The search for a HIV cure is thwarted by a combination of government inaction and denialism, corporate greed, and restrictive global trade rules, all of which hindered efforts to provide adequate care to those already infected.
As a result, Time of Pandemics’ narrative revolves around three critical themes: capitalism, the flaws in the global healthcare system, and the dominance of major global powers. It delves into the transformation of pharmaceutical giants into one of the most lucrative sectors globally, dissecting their role in global healthcare. It also focuses on local actors.
In the 1990s, South Africa was reeling from the devastating impact of HIV. According to “Time of Pandemics,” 9 million South Africans live with HIV. Exorbitant pricing by pharmaceutical companies, global trade disputes over patent protections, and the South African government’s initial reluctance to prioritize antiretroviral treatment caused significant delays in accessing life-saving HIV medications, leaving millions of people without treatment during a critical period of the epidemic. South African President Thabo Mbeki infamously told Parliament: “When you ask the question, does HIV cause AIDS, the question is, does a virus cause a syndrome? How does a virus cause a syndrome? It can’t.”
The majority black African population deeply felt the effects of these policy and political choices. The film powerfully captures the tireless efforts of activist groups fighting to secure access to antiretroviral drugs for those living with HIV.
Then, the COVID-19 pandemic struck, and Desai (who narrates the film and appears on camera) observed that the world was repeating many of the same mistakes made during the AIDS crisis. (In January 2020, the US government declared COVID-19 a public health emergency. A number of developing countries did so soon after. Two months later, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa declared COVID-19 a national disaster.)
The film relies on a wealth of data from influential figures in the healthcare sector globally and locally within South Africa, including Rob Wallace, Glenda Gray, and Anthony Fauci, former director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 (during the AIDS crisis) to 2022 and chief medical advisor to President Donald Trump 2021 to 2022, which coincides with the COVID-19 years.
The film carefully examines the frantic global race for COVID-19 vaccines, drawing parallels to the earlier search for HIV treatments. Despite initiatives like COVAX, an international partnership between the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Union aimed at equitable vaccine distribution, the film reveals how entities like the World Trade Organization and its TRIPS agreement undermined these efforts. TRIPS enforces intellectual property rights, effectively turning research into a private enterprise. During the pandemic, powerful pharmaceutical companies and wealthy nations hoarded vaccines for those who could afford them, exacerbating global inequities. In response, developing countries demanded patent waivers to secure access to these life-saving innovations.
“Time of Pandemics” serves as a powerful call to action, urging viewers to critically examine the functioning of global healthcare systems and the roles played by governments, corporations, and society in responding to pandemics.
Belinda N. Sanchez, a lawyer from the Dominican Republic, graduated with an MA in International Affairs at The New School in December of last year.