Muhavura had heard rumours of Covidex for a while. Mentions here and there. Dismissed as yet-another-elixir offered by some charlatan looking to make a quick buck out all our suffering. Until information started to filter through about the stature of the man behind the drug. Then came his media debut. Desert Island Discs Sunday July 4th.
And what a debut it turned to be! There is almost too much in there to unpack, and definitely hats off to his interlocutor, Simon Peter Kasyate, for being well in-tune with the interviewee, so that we are able to see Professor Ogwang for who he is. I shall attempt a short selection of what I saw in the interview, by way of explaining why I believe in the man and his mission.
- A boffin right out of Central Casting: Prof. Ogwang might as well provide the basis for our own Professor-Calculus-esque caricature of a single-mindedly academic chap, who is inevitably clueless about the mundane realities of the world around him. He confesses to not being aware that he had been sharing a dorm room at St. Mary’s Kisubi with the president’s son, he tells us that he is so focused on his lab work he’d often not notice that a colleague had in the meantime gotten pregnant! He is also clearly unschooled in the finer arts of double-speak; witness his reference to the “discrimination” that ensured he wasn’t part of the beneficiaries of COVID research funds. While we don’t doubt his word, this being Uganda, few people in his position should say that out loud.
- Humility: One thing Prof. Ogwang makes clear is that the initial spark that led to the Covidex drug was as much his mother’s use of herbs, as it was God’s direction, when he needed to find a remedy for his American friend who had contracted COVID 19. There is no shortage of men who want to pretend that their achievements are purely the result of their genius/ability. It takes a truly learned chap to recognise what many have shown: That truly seminal ideas have inexplicable primary origins. They begin at the level of mind suggestion. Or dreams (as was the case in many of our African traditions). The writer Arthur Koestler calls it sleep walking. That the greats sleep-walked themselves into their seminal discoveries. (Of course there was much grunt work after that, to realise the idea, but the origins kernel itself? Certainly not down purely to individual genius.) Albert Einstein would approve.
- One of Us: Which is to say that he is not the scion of the thieving classes. By his own account he is born of poor Teso folk, who treated his childhood maladies with herbs. He attended a good high school (St. Mary’s Kisubi), run by people giving of themselves for the good of others, and asking no major earthly rewards in return. Like us, he is largely the product of the goodwill of others. Muhavura has often wondered why we never hear of the pampered offspring of the thieves and pillagers doing anything remotely interesting or life-changing. You’d think that with all the money they amass, these thieves would be able to achieve results more long-term than unoccupied arcades and apartment blocks in a Kampala suburb! Instead, we hear no end of stories of drunken, fin de race offspring. (Of course Muhavura knows that this the curse of all those that worship false gods, but still.)
Believing
Muhavura as a results finds himself believing in the man and his mission. I believe that the good professor (and all of us) are faced with a defining moment in history. Greatness or bust. This is a Fleming moment. Alex Fleming was the man who famously (and accidentally) discovered penicillin, the natural antibiotic that revolutionalised how we deal with infections. The entire world is desperately looking for ways to fight the pandemic. We have vaccines on the one hand, but those will be slow in reaching most of the world’s people, and will cost a pretty penny. One the other hand we now have Covidex which for now seems to offer fast and effective treatment, at a price church mice can afford!
We have seen the letter from the Vice Chancellor of Mbarara University (MUST), ‘ordering’ Prof. Ogwang’s team to stop producing Covidex. I am once again surprised that seemingly educated chaps can be so focused on the trough placed before them they fail to see the big picture! The wonderful thing about history is that it will soon erase them all, leaving their children and grandchildren with the stink of shame.
The Road Ahead
And so what are we to do, knowing what we know.
Muhavura would like to suggest that because this is no ordinary situation, we have to think out-of-box. Which means,
Donate the full recipe for Covidex to humanity, royalty free. Publish it, renounce your right to any monetary benefits from its exploitation. You of course remain the originator.
Yes. That’s it. That’s all you have to do. And I challenge the MUST Vice Chancellor, who also claims right to the Covidex, to do the same.
There are several reasons to do this.
- We Central/Southern Africans like to go on about the Ubuntu philosophy. We can’t keep harping on about the selfishness of the West regarding their hoarding of COVID vaccines, and then when it comes to our own treatment we dust off their own playbook and think in terms of royalties and billions to be made! If there was an opportunity to showcase Ubuntu in action, surely this is it.
- To squabble about Intellectual Property rights at this time (as the MUST vice chancellor appears to be doing) is to miss a truly historic opportunity. Imagine Fleming (or his supervisor) arguing over ownership of penicillin. If he had, do you imagine he would be remembered to this day? Imagine Niels Bohr trying to get paid for his discoveries in Quantum Mechanics. Or Einstein trying to hawk E=mc2! No, a time comes, perhaps once in a millennium, when we should not be squabbling over cowrie shells! To do so is to betray a serious lack of imagination! The entire world is dying. We have a chance to help. Let it not be the legacy of those in charge, that all they saw was a new apartment block in Munyonyo or Najjera!
- Giving away intellectual property for free is not without precedent. And is in fact the norm in one of the most high-tech industries out there: the software industry. That Samsung or iPhone you hold in your hand would not be possible without many smart people giving their inventions away freely. You can read all about it here. People communicate easily across huge geographical spaces, learn new skills on YouTube, even send and receive money thanks to the efforts of many who chose not to demand a penny.
- Further to the above, it is actually possible to make money while giving away your ‘secret source’ for free. There is no shortage of examples from the software industry (Andressen, Torvalds, etc.), and there is no reason to think that pharmacology should be any different.
- Self-preservation: It is truly naive to imagine that the sons of Satan will let us produce and sell Covidex at just shy of US$ 1.5 a bottle. There are vaccine doses to sell, there are high-priced COVID drugs being developed. Those who worship money will use their power and connections to destroy any threat to their profiteering. The trick to surviving them is not to play by their rules.
History is replete with examples of men who failed to understand the importance of the moment they found themselves in. The good professor, and all who wish to lay claim to Covidex, have a chance to see the big picture. I do hope they rise to this challenge.
Muhavura 