Identifying the conundrums of "global health" in the Global North and Global South: a case for Sub-Saharan Africa.

The concept of “global health” is entrenched in the Western ideology of who is a human and the categorization of humanity. This categorization is ever-present in knowledge exchange and production, power relationships, and prioritization of health resources and allocation (1, 2). The most recent example is the “Global North” responses to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in low- and middle- income countries (LMICs), especially in Africa. In early 2020, two French scientists, dehumanized Africans and suggested that Africans should be used as “guinea pigs” for the COVID-19 vaccine trials despite the then relatively low COVID-19 morbidity and mortality in Africa (2, 3). This raised important questions about the perceived health equity, priority setting, and justice in “global public health” research. Indeed, the rationale for this raised serious ethical questions. If “global health is truly public health”, why is the life of a European considered more valuable than that of an African in this context? The aim of this commentary is to highlight the inequity in global health in the Global North and South with a specific focus on Africa