Suspicion takes hold of you in Africa, when you drive for hours and hours, covering distances that in themselves would not be so exaggerated, but which take forever due to the lack of good roads: perhaps we have not learned much from the pandemic. Perhaps we have wasted it, if in Europe and in the so-called developed countries there is already talk of distributing the third dose, while in most African countries not even 2% of the population has yet been vaccinated. If we think of Africa as something far away. And especially if here, in our country, this unawareness does not seem to be a problem.
We haven't learned how dramatically close Wuhan can be. Nor how we are affected by a strange flu caught by a stranger thousands and thousands of miles away. How his health can trigger a process that can lock us at home for weeks, for months, take our jobs, keep us away from our loved ones, sequester our children and prevent them from learning, from playing, from growing up in contact with others.
If the G20 Health G20, the meeting of the representatives of the 20 richest nations in the world at the beginning of September, only expressed hopes and did not launch a precise plan for the spread of vaccines (60% of the population in rich countries is vaccinated, compared to 1.4% in low-income countries), it means that the pandemic has passed like fresh water. And we look around us with a narrow field of vision, which makes us lose parts of reality, while variations multiply and we cannot even dare to feel safe.
When you meet with African colleagues, who carry out development projects, you try to ask: why don't people here get angry, why don't they demand the vaccine? Why are many of them almost afraid of it, or don't feel the need? Because - they answer - there is a lack of adequate information campaigns and nobody can afford to promote them if the vaccines are not available.
So we all cling to uncertainty, deceived by the spaces of freedom recovered (thanks to the vaccine), while in many African countries curfews remain in place, as in Kenya, or schools are still closed, as in Uganda. Situations that will present an expensive bill. And not only to them. To all of us.
Degree in Classical Literature and PhD in Sociology of Communication. Communications Director of the AVSI Foundation, based in Milan, dedicated to development cooperation and humanitarian aid worldwide. She has received several awards for her journalistic activity.
