Africa vaccine test: doctor and researcher apologize

Text by: Sébastien Duhamel

During a sequence broadcast on April 1 on the French channel LCI, a doctor, head of service at the Cochin hospital in Paris, and a researcher from Inserm, the French Institute for Medical Research, raised the idea to test a vaccine against the coronavirus in Africa. Their comments provoked anger and indignation from many Internet users.

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" Africa is not a laboratory ", " We are not lab rats ", so many slogans affixed to a map of Africa and massively relayed in recent days on social networks. So many reactions to the hypothesis of a BCG vaccine test on the continent made by Camille Locht and Jean-Paul Mira, during an exchange Wednesday April 1 on LCI.

Apologies and attempted explanations

After starting the controversy, they try to put it out. This Friday, April 3, Inserm said that the researcher Camille Locht, questioned two days earlier on the French channel, apologized. The latter emphasizes " that he made no racist remarks ", " that the conditions of the interview did not allow him to react correctly ". According to him, his intention was to affirm that " all countries should be able to benefit from the fruits of research ".

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Opposite, the public assistance of the Paris hospitals for which Jean-Paul Mira works also reacted . The AP-HP Executive Board says it is " shocked " by the words of the doctor who also makes his mea culpa: " I want to apologize to those who were struck, shocked, who felt insulted by words that I made awkwardly , ”says the head of the intensive care and intensive care unit at Cochin hospital.

Reaction from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs

In any case, the controversy is such that the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs spoke Friday, April 3. He said that the comments made on LCI " do not reflect the position of the French authorities ".

And in a desire to mark the support of Paris in this health crisis, the Quai d'Orsay specifies that President Emmanuel Macron met on Friday by videoconference with a dozen African counterparts " to take stock and see how support the continent's efforts ”.

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