Zambia signs US health deal after disputes over data-sharing

A draft leaked earlier this year prompted civil society groups to warn that Zambia was accepting wider data-sharing terms than other African countries, including long-term access to pathogen information and specimens. The Chapter One Foundation, a human rights group, said the government risked "signing away" citizens' health data. HIV advocates, including the Treatment Advocacy and Literacy Campaign, said the flow of information would be one-way and demanded the text be published.Opposition figures and activists also seized on reports that health money was being linked to preferential access for US companies to Zambia's large reserves of copper and other critical minerals. In May, Foreign Minister Mulambo Haimbe called the data terms a violation of privacy and "unconscionable", and accused Washington of tying the package to minerals. Then-US ambassador, Michael Gonzales, rejected that account as false. The row was sharpened by an earlier US suspension of drug funding after the embassy alleged theft of donated medicines, which the government disputed.Zambia's new deal replaces support that for years flowed largely through US programmes. The money is intended to support HIV/Aids, tub...