The Malawi Government has said it has yet to conclude discussions on a five-year $740 million (K1.3 trillion) United States of America (USA) health financing deal, whose initial deadline was December 31 2025.
Malawi wants to protect the rights to privacy on health data and pathogen information, and has since engaged in various consultations before putting pen to paper, according to Minister of Health and Sanitation Madalitso Chidumu Baloyi in an interview yesterday.
She called for patience, saying government is doing everything possible to have a memorandum of understanding (MoU) that protects its citizens.
Said Baloyi: “We are still in the process of negotiating. But soon you will be communicated on the way forward. Just a little bit of patience.
“We are still ironing the issues that include data sharing, specimen and sample sharing. We are doing consultations with the Ministry of Justice and other relevant institutions. Even with the USA, so we are finalizing on what we want in the MoU.”
In December, Secretary for Health and Sanitation Dan Namarika conceded that the discussions with USA authorities have been back and forth because they border on privacy and sovereignty.
He said the World Health Organisation (WHO) was in the past providing technical support and helped with data protection as well as pathogen issues.
However, with the USA no longer funding WHO, the situation was being discussed by individual countries.
Parliamentary Committee on Health chairperson Anthony Masamba urged government to demand co-authorship, data use agreements that protect intellectual property (IP), guaranteed technology transfer and ring-fenced funding for Malawi’s laboratories and data stewardship.
He said: “Protect sovereignty! Insert clauses affirming Malawi’s data ownership, regulatory primacy and right to suspend access during national security or legal conflicts.
“Establish an independent, Malawi-based oversight entity to audit access, publish annual transparency reports and certify privacy compliance before any extension of access windows.”
The deal is extended to other African countries where reports indicate that pathogen information and granting access to data systems sharing will remain in place for up to 25 years if they sign the deals.
The data systems include those covering national health warehouses, health management information, surveillance and outbreak response, health commodity inventory management, laboratory management, pharmacy management and electronic medical records.
Earlier, Kamuzu University of Health Sciences professor of public health and epidemiology Adamson Muula expressed reser vations with the arrangement to share personal health data to third parties without prior consent.
He said: “For many people, sharing personal data would be problematic. In the US, they have what they call HIPAA and if you read it, you’ll see that personal data is protected from third party users, and how one can use that.”
On the privacy law, Catholic University of Malawi dean of law Professor Clement Ng’ong’ola urged caution, stating that while constitutional rights can be abridged, it was not that simple.
Section 44 (1) of the Constitution provides that “no restrictions or limitations may be placed on the exercise of any rights and freedoms provided for in this Constitution other than those prescribed by law, which are reasonable, recognised by international human rights standards and necessary in an open and democratic society”.
International Coalition on Health Financing Advocacy chairperson Maziko Matemba called on the US to provide Malawi more room for engaging its citizens and stakeholders.
The new deal under the America First Global Health Strategy has already faced struggles in Kenya where a court suspended implementation of the $2.5 billion health aid deal over data privacy concerns.
