The cold war of health

This article was exclusively written for The European Sting by Ms. Danielle Mbamba, a sixth year medical student at Université des Montagnes in Cameroon. She is affiliated with the International Federation of Medical Students Associations (IFMSA), cordial partner of The Sting. The opinions expressed in this piece belong strictly to the writer and do not necessarily reflect IFMSA’s view on the topic, nor The European Sting’s one.

The world is a vast chess board. On one side, the Western bloc led by the all-powerful USA and on the other, the more Sino-centric “eastern” bloc led by gigantic China. Who are the pawns? The rest of the world of course except their respective allies on each side.

What started yesterday as a little political ego game has gradually taken on regrettable proportions today and the saddest thing is that the worst is yet to come at this rate.

What could be worse than increased customs fees? What could be worse than the resulting inflation? And well behind the fall of the economy, the challenges of supplying foodstuffs and the conflicts of strategic technologies, what money is not supposed to buy is gradually dying out: health.

While the powerful of this world are fighting against customs restrictions and soaring prices of raw materials, the health sector is helplessly watching its assassination circumstantially camouflaged as euthanasia: Medicines no longer arrive quickly enough, the quantity is even reduced; vaccines have become rare commodities, pharmaceutical companies must juggle profitability with a tight budget and a sense of duty despite increasingly challenging production costs.

NGOs and national organizations in developing countries which lived mainly on subsidies and free “donations” are brutally confronted with the facts: they must learn to fend for themselves. To survive, we have to make people pay, to get their heads above water, the most basic care is sold at a high price, and treatment is becoming expensive, at least more than usual.

The tragedy is that for the moment, everything seems manageable, under control, in balance. But deep down, the crack started a long time ago. Since the restrictions on masks, ventilators and tests during the Covid-19 period to the elimination of funding for public health programs such as what the care of HIV-positive patients is undergoing in nearly 55 countries – to name just a few – the chasm is widening little by little.

We could see the positive side when highlighting South-South collaboration and promoting local skills to try to reverse the trend, but the reality is still cruel. It would have been preferable to cut the cord (long and skillfully maintained) in a less brutal way, but collateral damage has no right to speak in this strategic contest.

Alas, that is how it is. Small fish get eaten by bigger ones and in our context, global health is falling by the wayside.

About the author

Miss Danielle Mbamba is a sixth year medical student at Université des Montagnes in Cameroon, she is a member of CAMSA and her primary goal is to save lives and participate in her own way in eradicating the inequalities in education and health rights that plague the world. She spends much of her free time at reading but also at writing which is for her a landmark in this world far too digitize