Ghana’s Parliament recently invited an anti-vaccine Kenyan and a conservative Dutch activist campaigning to curtail the WHO to address visiting MPs on “health sovereignty”, reports Health Policy Watch.
Ghanaian President John Mahama – who is championing African “health sovereignty” via an initiative called the Accra Reset – was a keynote speaker at the WHO’s World Health Assembly last month, and is drumming up international support for the initiative.
Yet Ghanaian Speaker of Parliament Alban Bagbin, a leader in Mahama’s National Democratic Congress, hosted Dr Wahome Ngare and Wilmer Hak, from ultra-conservative Christian Council International (CCI), who made inflammatory claims about the WHO, the Gates Foundation and other health initiatives during their speeches, earlier this month.
Describing Covid-19 vaccines as an “assault”, Ngare accused the Gates Foundation and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) of “genocide” for “gain-of-function” research – claiming that they are manufacturing viruses to infect humans so they can develop and profit from vaccines.
Ngare has also previously denounced numerous routine childhood vaccines, claiming that they lead to infertility and ill-health, and said the WHO was trying to use pandemics to grab power through the International Health Regulations, which set out rules to contain epidemics.
He heads a largely dormant group called the African Sovereignty Coalition, and also chairs the Kenya Christian Professionals Forum.
Meanwhile, Hak said that the WHO is financed largely by private companies and the pharmaceutical industry, which is why it was focused on fundraising for pandemics – as this would ensure that these groups profited.
He also claimed that the WHO Pandemic Agreement aims to centralise power during global health emergencies, and that the WHO and various international human rights mechanisms have “intensified their calls for universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) without any limitations”.
Charter
The pair’s speeches were part of the fourth annual meeting of the Inter-parliamentary Conference on Family, Sovereignty and Values, a conservative initiative that has been campaigning against sexual and reproductive health rights for several years, with the backing of US and European conservative Christian groups, including Hak’s CCI and Family Watch International, a US group that has lobbied African politicians for two decades to oppose SRHR, LGBTQ rights and sex education in schools.
The conference is developing a draft “Charter on Family, Sovereignty and Values” that it aims to present to the African Union for adoption, but which already contradicts several continental human rights-based treaties – including the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), the Maputo Protocol, and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC).
Felix Kwakye Ofosu, Ghana’s Minister of State in Charge of Government Communications, failed to respond to Health Policy Watch’s queries about why Ngare and Hak were invited and whether their views on health sovereignty reflect those of the Ghanaian government.
Health Policy Watch first reported on an alliance between anti-rights groups opposing sexual and reproductive health rights and anti-vaxxers in 2024 at the second meeting of the Inter-parliamentary Conference on Family, Sovereignty and Values in Entebbe, Uganda.
Ngare also addressed that conference, where he claimed that several vaccines caused infertility, and also attacked the WHO. He was supported by South African Shabnam Mohamed, executive director of the Africa Chapter of Children’s Health Defence, the anti-vaccine group started by US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.
Last week’s conference was held shortly after the Ghanaian Parliament passed one of the most repressive anti-LGBTQ laws in the world, following a similar pattern to Uganda, which also tightened up its anti-LGBTQ law before hosting the conference in 2024.
Burkina Faso is due to host the next conference in 2027, and MPs attending last week’s meeting were urged to drum up support for the Charter in the next year.
But South Africa’s delegation head – IFP MP Zandile Majozi – told the conference that her country would not adopt such a charter as it “contradicts our Constitution and … does not align with the regional and international laws in which we believe”.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
South African among anti-vaxxers at African conference
Ghana says no to US health deal
Ghana’s draconian anti-gay Bill punishes LGNTQ+ people and their supporters