Late in February, Zimbabwe pulled out of a proposed $367m United States health funding agreement after objecting to provisions requiring broad American access to sensitive health data.

The five-year programme was presented as support for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and epidemic preparedness efforts.

However, the terms demanded extensive sharing of national health intelligence, including epidemiological surveillance data and pathogen samples, while offering no binding guarantees that Zimbabwe would receive equitable access to medical technologies developed from them.

Harare called the proposal an “unequal exchange”, warning that Zimbabwe risked supplying the “raw materials for scientific discovery” while the resulting benefits could remain concentrated in the United States and global pharmaceutical firms. Critics increasingly describe this pattern as biomedical extractivism: a toxic combination of exploitative research practices and colonial thinking that reinforces Western dominance.

In Lusaka, officials and civil society organisations have raised concerns about a proposed United States-Zambia health partnership valued at more than $1bn over five years. The draft would require Zambia to contribute roughly $340m in domestic co-financing while granting the United States far-reaching access to national health data and pathogen-sharing arrangements.

One controversial provision would allow the agreement to be terminated if Zambia failed to conclude a separate bilateral compact with Washington over minerals such as copper and cobalt.

Kenya provides a third warning sign.

Its High Court suspended a similar $2.5bn agreement last December after a legal challenge contending that it could expose sensitive health data without adequate safeguards under Kenya’s Data Protection Act.

Together, the disputes in Harare, Lusaka and Nairobi point to a broader pattern. They are unfolding against the backdrop of a rapidly expanding network of bilateral global health agreements Washington has been negotiating across Africa under its “America First Global Health Strategy”.

According to tracking by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a US-based independent health policy research organisation, the United States has signed more........

© Al Jazeera