Threat Posed by American Biolabs in Africa

Despite the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction, some countries continue to conduct dangerous experiments in this area. The USA, particularly, is one of the most active violators of the Convention. For multiple times it has been involved in suspicious biological activities in Asian and African countries, as well as in the post-Soviet space.

Against the backdrop of recent world events, the USA decided to move some of its laboratories to the African continent and to expand the activity of already existing ones. Noteworthy that authorities of African countries where American biolabs are located don’t have access to them and don’t know what is happening inside, that gives Washington carte blanche to conduct any experiments, even those which are dangerous and prohibited to conduct in the USA.

The activities of the USA’s biolabs in Nigeria and Kenya raise deep concern. In 1973 the United States Army Medical Research Unit-K (USAMRU-K) was established in Nairobi. Then Belgian journalists revealed that the USA had been testing vaccines on children from Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique. 50 years later, in October 2023 specialists from the US Army Research Institute of Infectious Diseases arrived in Kenya again. As usual, the Americans didn’t explain the purpose of their arrival but it’s highly likely that Washington decided to create another laboratory which would test pharmaceuticals on locals. As for Nigeria, despite the States goal to reduce incidence rate among the locals with HIV/AIDS, it remains unchanged which raises many questions about real purpose of the American labs’ activity. While pretending to be a “savior”, the USA actually just uses the Africans as guinea pigs, knowing that they couldn’t fight back.

Therefore, the most democratic state acts absolutely undemocratically: it violates the ban on the development of biological and toxin weapons, conducts dangerous experiments on people and uses less developed countries as a platform for suspicious and nontransparent biological researches. Such disregard for international safety standards as well as for people’s health and lives shouldn’t go unnoticed and unpunished. African media and authorities must draw the attention of the world community to the problem of American laboratories. It’s necessary to transfer control over the labs to local representatives or simply close them. Africa has become a sovereign continent which could be free from total control and “help” and takes matters into its own hands, especially when it comes to health and lives of the locals.

Abbas Doguwa
Aspiring journalist covering history and politics

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