SACP supports legitimate measures by SANDF to protect military personnel against COVID-19

31 January 2021

The South African Communist Party (SACP) supports legitimate measures by the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) to ensure Force Protection, mitigate against military personnel being compromised in their frontline duties, and thus save life against COVID-19. The military is the last line of defence in every country.

Capable defence forces around the world are well-known for medical research for protecting their forces, and the results of that research have been beneficial to the wider society, just as it has happened with technologies developed through military research. The SANDF was correct in pointing out these facts in its statement released on Thursday, 28 January 2021. The last thing that South Africa needs is a military compromised by disease.

There is a large body of scientific evidence globally that the Cuban developed Heberon® Alfa R (Interferon Alfa 2b) has been used successfully for over 30 years. It does not take rocket science, vis-à-vis the World Health Organisation, to establish that Heberon® Alfa R is approved around the world for the treatment of numerous diseases, including several cancers.

The description of the Cuban developed Heberon® Alfa R by the Sunday Times on 31 January 2021 as a “controversial… drug” has absolutely no scientific basis and should not have been used at all. The SACP accepts the explanation by the SANDF that its Health Services applied to the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) for the use of Heberon® Alfa R against COVID-19 to save life under Force Protection as detailed in SANDF application and statement cited above—which indicates that the approval was granted on 5 October 2020.

The SACP is deeply worried about the highly questionable manner in which SAHPRA handled the matter following the first case in which the Military Health Services used the medicine successfully, saving life. In short, SAHPRA embarked on a path to seek to destroy the medicine, literally. Meanwhile, in another case, SAHPRA announced conditional approval for the use of Ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19 because of mounting public pressure. 

It is important to underline the fact that Heberon® Alfa R was, unlike certain products, from the onset developed for use not in animals but humans and its success has a well-established track record. We say this having fully appreciated and supported the call to SAHPRA to consider approving Ivermectin given the evidence that came forward from the medical fraternity for its use in humans.

Clearly, there is something subjective, suspiciously, with the way SAHPRA has come across. This cannot be left unchallenged.

The SACP has started engaging with its Alliance partners for that conduct to be scrutinised. We will also engage with other fraternal formations to begin a process to hold to account authorities that allow people to die while remedies with the potential to save life are suppressed. South Africa should not allow politics, such as the anti-Cuban political agenda and the illegal blockade of Cuba by the United States, to stand in the way of protecting and saving life.          

China and Cuba, among other countries, successfully used the Heberon® Alfa R to protect their populations as part of their relatively successful national programmes to reduce the loss of life to COVID-19. The request by Italy to Cuba in 2020 for assistance to turn the tide against the massive loss of life that was ravaging the Italian society, with Italy taking the top spot in the COVID-19 global death toll at that time, was informed by Cuba’s successes in healthcare and its engineering and biotechnology capabilities, including medicine research and development. The Cuban Medical Brigades have made an invaluable contribution in Italy and other countries in the fight against COVID-19.

Further afield, the SACP calls upon the Department of Health, and the government, generally, to avoid confining our national vaccine programme, especially sourcing, to Western European and the United States developed vaccines, but to also engage as widely as possible with other that have genetic engineering and biotechnology capabilities such as Cuba, China and Russia. It is crucial to build domestic productive capacity in vaccine research and development as well as production, as part of our national strategy to fight COVID-19 and future pandemics. South Africa should not allow imperialist interests and the self-enrichment interests of global pharmaceutical monopolies to find their way into our healthcare thinking, strategies and institutions. We need to put life before profits!

Issued by Alex Mohubetswane Mashilo, Media & Communications, SACP, 31 January 2021