RESUMEN
This chapter attempts an interrogation of the political and ethical dimensions of foreign medical aid during a pandemic. One of the moral conundrums that the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic presents to governments of developing countries in the Global South with poor health infrastructure is seeking much needed foreign medical aid without compromising sovereignty, safety, and national integrity, especially from the Global North. In the context of COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria, medical supplies and personnel were offered by China as emergency philanthropy. This chapter provides a novel ethical evaluation of foreign medical aid in a pandemic, using principles of the African ethic of communion. It exposes the values both at play and absent in choosing foreign medics as a complementary strategy, as opposed to full reliance on the competence and initiatives of local medical personnel in tackling the challenges of COVID-19 in Nigeria. The chapter argues that while the values of transparency, consultation, dialogue, and trust building are lacking in the decision-making process that brought the Chinese foreign medics' aid to Nigeria, the act is morally justified by virtue of its potentials to save lives that would otherwise be lost without it. This chapter posits further, however, that China's politicization of its philanthropy undercuts the moral justification of the gesture. It concludes by explicating how the principles of relationality, equity, and harmony embedded within an African moral worldview can provide moral validation for medical philanthropy at a time of pandemic without compromising China's responsibility and Nigeria's national integrity. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023. All rights reserved.
RESUMEN
The breakout of SARS-CoV-2 has resulted in the global spread of COVID-19, a viral infection that has become a pandemic. Millions have been infected, with hundreds of thousands losing their lives even as the tolls are projected to climb higher over the next several months and years. The pandemic, whose effects are primarily medical and biological, has however impacted global politics, economics, and social structures in very significant ways that generate new realities on the one hand while accentuating and making more visible, other realities that have existed hitherto, on the other hand. This chapter explores the intersection of identity politics and the pandemic, globally and locally. It shows how racism, nationalism, and inequalities have shaped the response to the pandemic in spite of some coordinated efforts at the global level to manage the pandemic. The chapter argues further that local responses have equally been constrained by group-based perceptions and attitudes cutting across religious, cultural, and class divides. These factors have combined to create uneven responses that make holistic recovery more difficult to achieve. While being mindful of the local peculiarities that the social and political dimensions of managing the pandemic require, the chapter makes a case for the need for solidarity within and across nations not only for the management of the pandemic but also toward a fair post-pandemic order. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023. All rights reserved.