Bill Gates visited Kenya in November 2022, and stopped by the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) that has been receiving funding for research projects from his Foundation for almost two decades. KEMRI showcased some of its funded projects that included PRiSMA and CHAMPS.
PRiSMA.
Pregnancy Risk Surveillance Innovation and Measurement Alliance (PRiSMA) is an ongoing project only working with partners that are funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Ghana, India, Kenya, Pakistan and Zambia. The George Washington University received $4.8million from the Gates Foundation to lead this study. According to the lead researchers, the aim of this research is to ‘develop a robust dataset and the data collected would influence and inform policy changes at the World Health Organization’. The World Health Organization is also largely funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This right here poses as a conflict of interest.
We found that the women enrolled in this study are not fully informed that they are research subjects. Some of the women and community health workers that we interviewed in Kenya and Ghana had not been made aware of the ongoing study. The pregnant women reported signing forms to ‘receive free health care and treatment in the healthcare facility’. Some of them did not comprehend what the forms were all about, and were just asked to put their signature on them to ‘receive free antenatal (prenatal) services’. They did not know anything about informed consent or the need for it ‘as long as the prenatal services were free’. In Kenya, maternity services have been free since 2013, and this has been a rich source for gathering data on unsuspecting pregnant women in the country. Some of Kenya’s governors are luring pregnant women into receiving prenatal care in healthcare facilities by offering cash allowances. This benefit is not offered to pregnant women who choose to visit their local traditional birth attendant or midwife. These women are unaware of the surveillance of their confidential personal health and clinical data records that will be the basis for decision making both locally and globally.
Since these studies will be used to inform the World Health Organization’s policies and decision making, there is a need for thoroughly inclusive comprehensive studies. Why are these ‘surveillance’ studies not being carried out in Europe, Australia, North America and other countries? As much as they claim that they are targeting countries where maternal and child health information is limited, those countries are not representative of the world’s female population. Notably, this could also put so many traditional birth attendants and local midwives out of their professions in the name of ‘addressing pregnancy risks’.
CHAMPS
The Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance (CHAMPS) is conducted in Western Kenya aiming to collect data for ‘tracking the preventable causes of childhood deaths globally’ according to KEMRI. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded $1.3million to HJFMRI for COVID-19 surveillance in CHAMPS and Antenatal/Postnatal Research. This study aims to ‘fill the research gaps in understanding how COVID-19 impacts pregnant women and newborns and those co-infected with HIV, tuberculosis and malaria. Coincidentally, The Global Fund by Bill Gates primarily focuses on ‘fighting’ HIV, tuberculosis and Malaria in Africa, so this will also build onto their repertoire. The CHAMPS objective is to reduce child deaths in lower-resource countries, which is ironic because from our research, other factors such medical negligence and ignorance has led to increase in newborn deaths in Africa as we reported in another article.
Health Demographic and Surveillance
The World Health Organization Africa claims that public health surveillance is important for the planning, implementation and evaluation of public health practice. This surveillance involves the on-going systematic collection, analysis and interpretation of health data. This saw the establishment of the Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR), a strategy for comprehensive public health surveillance and response adopted by countries in the WHO-African region. One of our previous articles explained the intense use of health surveillance forms and vaccine passports required when traveling across most African Union countries. Additionally, the recent outbreak of Marburg disease in Africa has seen the World Health Organization advising on the need for greater surveillance and detection activities that may include contact tracing. The WHO claimed to have ‘intensified surveillance in the field’ through contact tracing after Equatorial Guinea reported its Marburg outbreak. Countries had restricted movements along their borders through transboundary or cross-border disease surveillance. Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance by Bill Gates claimed that public health officials warned that Africa needed to ‘ramp up its surveillance and detection infrastructure’.
Verbal Autopsies.
These health and demographic surveillance study systems in Africa also conduct verbal autopsies for participant deaths within the study area. Verbal autopsies are conducted to ‘ascertain the cause of death’. This means that if a vaccine/drug trial is administered to research area participants, in case of a death outcome, health workers verbally interview the bereaved family for signs and symptoms of the deceased prior to death. No other autopsies are performed and the cause of death for these poor people may remain hidden forever.
The Kintampo Health Research Centre (KHRC) in Ghana utilizes the health and demographic surveillance system to assess the demographic health impacts of various study and research health interventions. Research health interventions in Africa include the administration of trial vaccines and medicines. Similar surveillance systems are in place in Gates Foundation funded areas such as in Malawi, the Karonga Health and Demographic Surveillance System, carrying out similar demographic health surveillance. Covid-19 surveillance studies were also implemented in Africa and incorporated in the longstanding surveillance studies in a rural settings for instance in KwaZulu-Natal South Africa.
Conclusion
The fact that most research participants and their families are unaware that they are part of a vaccine trial, leaves no room for justice or compensation. Also, they have no way of reporting the crimes of dangerous vaccines used on them without their informed consent. Verbal autopsies only serve to benefit the research study and leaves the victims harmed and weak. It is unethical to continue having these health and demographic surveillance studies without receiving informed consent from research participants. The avoidance of presenting full disclosure about the vaccine trials to the participants is unethical. Participants have a right to know who is funding the studies and how they would be compensated when injured.