So it has come to this. The American imperium, in what can only be described as a spectacular act of self-immolation, has decided to slash its funding for HIV treatment in South Africa. And who must step into the breach? None other than Britain’s own AstraZeneca, the corporate phoenix that rose from the ashes of the pandemic to remind us what the old country still has to offer. One can almost hear the ghost of Cecil Rhodes applauding from his grave.
Let us be honest: the United States has been wilfully dismantling its soft power for years. The Trump administration’s grotesque budget cuts to PEPFAR, the programme that has saved countless lives in sub-Saharan Africa, were a tragedy. But the Biden administration’s continuation of this policy is nothing short of a scandal. They are effectively telling the Global South: “We have your backs only when it suits us politically.” And what suits America now? Certainly not the plight of millions of HIV-positive South Africans. No, Washington is too busy peacocking over its own culture war to care about the actual war on disease.
Enter AstraZeneca, the British firm that delivered the Oxford vaccine – the first to be approved, I should add, despite the naysayers – and now stands ready to supply affordable HIV therapies. The company’s move is not merely commercial; it is a salvaging of Western credibility. If the United States has abandoned its moral leadership, then Britain must reluctantly assume the mantle. It is a role we have played before: the weary but dutiful guardian of liberal values, the empire repackaged as a global health provider.
But let us not kid ourselves. This is a stopgap, not a solution. The fact that a private corporation must fill a hole left by the world’s largest economy is a damning indictment of our times. We have slid into a state of intellectual decadence where short-term fiscal optics trump long-term human capital. The Victorians would have been appalled. They understood that investing in the health of the empire’s peripheries was a matter of self-interest as much as morality. Today’s legislators seem to have forgotten even basic utilitarianism.
What AstraZeneca is doing, then, is a heroic but lonely act. It is the equivalent of a single fireman running into a burning building while the crowd stands by with their mobile phones recording the spectacle. The applause will be loud, but hollow. Until the great powers – and here I mean Britain no less than America – commit to a sustainable, state-led patronage of global health, we will continue to lurch from crisis to crisis, trusting in the goodwill of CEOs rather than the obligations of governments.
Make no mistake: I am grateful for AstraZeneca’s action. But gratitude should not breed complacency. This is a moment to ask why the burden of conscience falls on a private company, while the official custodians of world order twiddle their thumbs. The British have a proud history of standing against the tide, from abolishing the slave trade to building the NHS. We can do better than to rely on corporate chivalry. Let us hope this is a wake-up call, not a quiet surrender.
