WHO SLAMS WORLD LEADERS FOR CONTRIBUTING TO DISCRIMINATION OF AFRICA OVER COVID

WHO Director of Communications Gabby Stern addressed a webinar on the impact of vaccine-inequality and the travel bans on the continent.

Saya Pierce-Jones | 

JOHANNESBURG - The World Health Organization (WHO) has slammed world leaders for contributing to the discrimination of African COVID patients and workers.

Earlier on Sunday, the group's director of communications, Gabby Stern, addressed a webinar on the impact of vaccine-inequality and the travel bans on the continent.

Despite having been identified in other countries, South Africa was the first to report the Omicron variant and faced harsh penalties as a result.

Stern said that since those reports emerged, international media agencies have also been guilty of fueling the continental discrimination.

"Early on at the World Health Organization our director-general, who is African, was the target of the most grotesque, racist cartoons and attacks on social media…and this was linked to the stereotyping of Africa as somehow being beholden to China," Stern said.

"It has been convenient for leaders of Western nations and the pharma industry for their own purposes to stereotype and caricature all things African from the start," said Stern.