06/04/21
Covid-19，谎言和统计：腐败与大流行
Republish
- You have to credit our authors.
- 您必须信贷scidev.net-在可能的情况下包括我们的徽标，并带有回到原始文章的链接。
- You can simply run the first few lines of the article and then add: “Read the full article on SciDev.Net” containing a link back to the original article.
- 如果您还想拍摄此故事中发布的图像，则需要使用原始来源确认使用它们。
- The easiest way to get the article on your site is to embed the code below.
全文可在此处以HTML提供。
Press Ctrl-C to copy
Covid-19，谎言和统计：腐败与大流行
经过：Syriacus Buguzi, Fiona Broom, Joel Adriano, Aleida Rueda
From Brazil to the Philippines, secretive governments across the world are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic by covering up data and bypassing public procurement rules, undermining trust in health systems, fuelling anti-vaxxers and putting immunisation campaigns at risk.
秘密医疗产品和服务的秘密合同已成为许多国家的规范，而有关COVID-19案件和死亡的数据已被操纵和报告。
当局和国家负责人利用大流行作为探讨致力于开放和交流的公共机构的机会，最糟糕的罪犯组成了冠状病毒罪犯的犯罪师。
在the global South, the repercussions for already struggling health and governance systems could be catastrophic.
Corruption outbreak
This is a tale of two pandemics, says Jonathan Cushing, who leads on global health at the anti-corruption non-profit Transparency International.
库欣告诉说：“您有1909年，然后我们在过去一年中看到的是缺乏透明度 - 由于当时的紧急需求，直接采购立法的利用。”SciDev.Net。
“We’ve seen repeated cases of corruption, and that is the second pandemic in many ways.”
Malpractice, says Cushing, has been reported “around the world, in the Philippines, in Uganda, we’ve seen cases raised in Kenya, Latin America as well”.
“As the pandemic has progressed, we’ve seen the shift from the rush to buy [personal protective equipment] and ventilators … to the procurement of vaccines,” says Cushing.
“What we’re seeing now is a complete lack of transparency.”
“In the current scenario in the pandemic, trust is key. We need to ensure that there is trust in the system,”
Jonathan Cushing, Transparency International’s global health team
Tanzanian President John Magufuli may have been a victim of his own refusal to acknowledge the presence and seriousness of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
6月，Magufuli宣布“电晕疾病已被上帝消除”，使坦桑尼亚“无冠状病毒”。政府停止发布有关案件数量的数据，而疾病监测和倡导则削弱了。
Magufuli’s death — officially from heart problems, but widely believed to be connected with COVID-19 — was announced on 17 March.
Residents of Tanzania’s largest city, Dar es Salaam, toldSciDev.Netit remained to be seen whether Tanzania’s government would reverse Magufuli’s increasingly authoritarian policies. But new president Samia Suluhu Hassan has already marked a departure from her predecessor, pledging to form a scientific advisory committee on COVID-19.
流行病学家说，统计数据将是任何新的证据驱动反应的核心。目前，随着人们继续生病，数据赤字仍然存在。
“What’s lacking now in Tanzania is an enabling environment that allows scientific enquiries on such things as pandemics,” says Frank Minja, a Tanzanian doctor and associate professor of neuroradiology at the Yale School of Medicine’s radiology and biomedical imaging department, in the US.
“Of course, science doesn’t work in isolation, it needs economic and political decisions. But science is a tool that should be used to solve our problems.”
数据in the dark
对于发布统计数据的国家，其中许多已经按摩以揭示现实的玫瑰色版本。
数据操作是一个关键的标志COVID-19 corruption, according to Transparency International. This can have devastating consequences, such as resources misallocation, spikes in case rates as citizens are encouraged to carry on as normal, and increased mistrust in governments when reality does not match with the official version of events.
Multiple studies, including those based on rates of population withCOVID-19 antibodies，建议SARS-COV-2在许多国家比官方统计数据更为普遍。
一项这样的研究，在赞比亚进行，并在TheBMJ, observed “a surprisingly high prevalence of COVID-19 mortality”.
由劳伦斯·姆瓦纳尼达（Lawrence Mwananyanda）领导的研究团队从右边的护理权开始说：“与19岁的普遍叙述相矛盾，Covid-19在赞比亚产生了严重影响。低测试速率的解释很大程度上可以解释出来，而不是COVID-19的患病率较低。
“如果我们的数据可以推广到非洲的其他环境，那么这个问题的答案是，'Covid-19为什么跳过非洲？’这不是。”
In回复, pathologists from the Ministry of Home Affairs and Zambia’s University Teaching Hospital said the conclusions from the Lusaka study were “highly questionable” and could not be extrapolated to all of Sub-Saharan Africa.
Scientists argue that government data indicating low COVID-19 case numbers in Tanzania, Mexico and the Philippines misrepresents the reality of the health crisis. The graph reflects official data sourced by the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 map, as of 26 March.
Researchers in India found that COVID-19 infections had been严重低估了and could be up to 95 times higher than the official numbers. Health and development economist Anup Malani toldSciDev.Netthat the high seroprevalence — the number of people who tested positive for COVID-19 — in the rural areas studied was due to mass migration from the cities to escape lockdown restrictions.
在巴西，该国卫生部在6月从其网站上删除了累计COVID-19，担任总统Jair Bolsonarodeclared that the statisticsdid not “reflect the moment the country is in”.
The supreme court ordered that the data be restored, and thefigures now indicatethat Brazil is among the worst affected countries in the world, as the government appoints its fourth health minister since the pandemic began.
Attacking the messengers
Those who refuse to toe government lines have faced repercussions, from losing their jobs to legal intimidation and verbal attacks.
After she criticised Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte and his government over its handling of the COVID-19 crisis, a barrage of online abuse was directed at Maria Ressa, the founder of the Philippines-based news siteRappler。
雷萨（Ressa）是杜特尔特（Duterte）直言不讳的批评者，但国际记者中心（ICFJ）的分析表明，滥用Ressa的第二高升高与她质疑Covid-19数据的正式报告有关。
“Ressa lives at the core of a very 21st century storm,” says那个报告，由ICFJ全球研究总监Julie Posetti领导。“这是虚假信息和攻击的愤怒 - 可靠的记者受到不受惩罚的在线暴力行为；事实陷入困境和民主国家。”
Posetti says that state threats and digital violence put journalists — and journalism — at risk in the real world. In January, the tenth arrest warrant was issued against Ressa, who is facing multiple libel proceedings, on top of a six-year jail term, which Ressa is appealing.
The red bar indicates the level of ‘highly explicit abuse’ directed at Maria Ressa after she criticised the Philippines’ handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, based on data compiled by the ICFJ.
Anthony Leachon, a leading physician and public health expert in the Philippines, was forced to quit as a special adviser on the COVID-19 taskforce in June after he publicly disagreed with the Duterte administration’s handling of the pandemic, and argued that the taskforce had succumbed to political pressure.
Leachon also criticised the health department, saying its reporting of COVID-19 was unreliable and delayed, and questioned why the government was favouring vaccines from companies with no safety and efficacy data. The Philippines government has approved the Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines for people aged under 65.
Leachon has continued to call on authorities to release real-time data on COVID-19 infections, which he said will allow local officials to quickly respond with appropriate policies.
For speaking independently, Leachon has been ridiculed and mocked by Duterte supporters. The administration’s spokesman, Harry Roque, said that Duterte repeatedly cursed Leachon during a December cabinet meeting on COVID-19.
“This lack of transparency and urgency is the reason why the Philippines is in a mess right now and has fallen behind its peers in the region,” Leachon tellsSciDev.Net。
“我们处于世界上最长的连续锁定状态。我们仍在隔离区，但现在我们正在看到案件的激增……[]我们仍在关于要采购的疫苗，如何以及什么选择指南的辩论中。”
In March, the Philippines received its first delivery of vaccines from the COVAX facility — the international partnership established to support vaccine access for low- and middle-income countries. Leachon warns that the lack of openness and transparency in the country risks undermining confidence in COVID-19 vaccines.
Captive information
随着大流行病的开始，对墨西哥独立信息机构的攻击 - 国家透明度研究所，获得信息和保护（INAI）的攻击。
2019年，总统安德烈斯·曼努埃尔·洛佩斯·奥布拉多（AndrésManuelLópezObrador）任职第一年，Inai报告说政府是legally challengingat least 30 information requests that the institute had approved.
In January, López Obrador announced a proposal to shut down INAI and replace it with a government agency, a move that Human Rights Watch Americas director José Miguel Vivanco called “the perfect recipe for secrecy and abuse”.
“The INAI has played a crucial role in protecting privacy and ensuring the public can access information about government corruption and human rights violations,” Vivanco said.
珍妮特·奥罗佩扎·英格（Janet Oropeza Eng）是民间社会组织基金会的责任和反腐败研究员，他说，Inai对于过去十年来监测联邦政府机构的努力至关重要。
“也许这不是COVID-19,但政府把握现在ld come out and explain what’s causing these deaths. We don’t have the freedom or the facts to say if it is COVID-19.”
阿道夫·姆科诺（Adolf Mkono），居民在坦桑尼亚卡格拉地区
“If INAI disappears or becomes dependent on the executive [branch of government], it would be a regression in terms of independence and autonomy. It is not possible to be both judge and party,” Eng tellsSciDev.Net。
“高管不能命令自己打开信息。对于墨西哥人来说，这将是已经保证的信息权的倒退。”
Transparency International’s Mexico branch has made repeated freedom of information requests for pricing transparency, but “gets nowhere”, according to Jonathan Cushing, from the organisation’s global health team.
“And it’s not unique to Mexico, it’s Argentina, in Pakistan they’re trying the same thing. It’s a complete shutdown,” he says.
Gag orders
Cryptic references to ‘pneumonia’ became one of the only ways Tanzanians could talk openly about the disease outbreak, after the government passed a regulation prohibiting reporting on COVID-19.
Under theonline content regulation，禁止发布“可能造成公共破坏和混乱的公共信息”，包括“在国家或其他地方爆发致命或传染性疾病的爆发，未经各自当局的批准，该信息的内容有关。
Breaches could be met with imprisonment for a minimum of 12 months, a fine of at least five million shillings (US$2155), or both.
Adolf Mkono, a resident of Tanzania’s northern Kagera region, which borders Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and Lake Victoria, says the fear of being charged under the new regulation is stifling information-sharing.
“自去年年底以来，我目睹了许多人抱怨呼吸困难后死亡。这不是正常的。”姆科诺说
“也许这不是COVID-19,但政府把握现在ld come out and explain what’s causing these deaths. We don’t have the freedom or the facts to say if it is COVID-19,” Mkono tells SciDev.Net in an interview conducted in January this year, before the decision by Tanzania’s new President Samia Suluhu Hassan to form a scientific advisory committee on COVID-19. *
Tanzania’s health ministry did not directly respond to these claims whenSciDev.Net寻求评论。但是，传播负责人分享了该部首席秘书Mabula Mchembe的视频，他说：“不对每个抱怨呼吸困难的患者都应该被认为患有Covid-19。我访问了许多医院，我可以得出的结论是，所讨论的COVID-19是基于社交媒体的说法，而不是真的。”
闭门后面的采购
Covid-19-19疫苗生产商要求世界各地的政府签署未披露协议，以使每剂量的价格保持秘密。
联合国毒品和犯罪办公室说：“一些国家已经建立了特殊的委员一月份的政策文件。
“There can be a lack of transparency, and thus a potential risk of corruption in what these agreements entail.”
With emergency procurement procedures and vaccine negotiations hidden from public view, health system corruption can have a speedy — and devastating — knock-on effect for disease containment.
On 27 March, Mexico’s governmentquietly revised its official COVID-19 statistics, acknowledging that the true death toll may be 60 per cent higher than previously reported.
The country went from being称赞by the Pan-American Health Organization for its initial response to the pandemic, to being ranked among theworst performing countriesin the world as cases and deaths climbed.
2020年4月，政府发布了一项开放式法令，授权购买与冠状病毒相关的商品和服务，而无需进行公开招标程序。
The result, according to the data analysis project Covid Purchases (ComprasCOVID.MX), by human rights NGO PODER and data journalism initiative Serendipia, was that almost 95 per cent of Mexico’s procurement contracts in 2020 were direct award contracts — that is, awarded without competition.
This compares with 2019, when about 78 per cent of public contracts were direct awards, according to civil society organisation Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity.
And concerns have been raised about the suitability of companies awarded tenders, with many lacking experience in the medical fields or linked to previous corruption cases.
“令人担忧的问题是，所有级别的政府 - 不仅联邦政府都在滥用紧急法令，继续进行直接奖励，而无需任何限制，”透明国际乡村分支机构墨西哥透明度透明度分支机构董事EduardoBohórquez告诉SciDev.Net。
数据gathered by ComprasCOVID.MX shows that government institutions paid wildly different prices for vital personal protective equipment, such as face masks.
While some government departments paid one Mexican peso — about five US cents — per mask, others paid up to 405 pesos — almost US$20.
Bohórquez says that without a sunset clause in the emergency procurement legislation, Mexico’s public funds and institutions are left vulnerable to corruption.
Vaccines for sale
While there are reports of private vaccine holidays to the United Arab Emirates up for grabs, Pakistan is believed to be the first country to have approved the private import and commercial sale of COVID-19 vaccines.
透明度的拥护者已敦促政府放弃该提案，这将使Sputnik-V疫苗以比全球设定价格高约160％的价格出售。
This would “provide a window of corruption”, as it could mean government vaccines end up in private hospitals for commercial sale and price gouging in the public sector, said Nasira Iqbal, former justice of the Lahore High Court and vice-chair of Transparency International Pakistan, in aletter to the Prime Minister。
“政府不应鼓励这样的政策，以付出透明度为代价的社会某个部分，”伊克巴尔继续说。
作为回应，国家卫生服务部法规和协调部秘书Aamir Ashraf Khawaja表示，私人疫苗的销售只是政府COVID-19的回应的一部分。
“这是一个被认为是联邦的决定government to allow private sector to import vaccine as the national vaccination priorities favoured the healthcare workers and the elderly, involving some lag in reaching other segments of the society,”Khawaja said in a letter。
“可以补充说，政府正在确定最高零售价，为竞争和自由市场动态留下了空间。”
分析师说，当局和私人药品公司之间的潜在利益冲突为腐败留下了机会。
SciDev.Netcontacted the Pakistan government’s Press Information Department for comment, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
一位总部位于巴基斯坦SciDev.Netthat that while there were few confirmed reports of coronavirus corruption in Pakistan, rumours abound in a country known for its systemic and endemic corruption.
“On the policy side, there are rumours of corruption in the purchase of ventilators and in suppressing case and death data in the province of Punjab early on to create an impression that the incidence of the virus was low,” the economist said.
“On the health front, there has been a lot of scepticism on testing for COVID-19. It is again rumoured that for travel purposes, private labs were on purpose providing negative results. This was mainly done for international travel. There was no monitoring, either by the press or by NGOs.”
Additionally, analysts say that theUS$1.386 billion根据国际货币基金组织快速融资工具，尚未完全支付，于2020年4月承诺在2020年4月向巴基斯坦发放。
Open science, open societies
The first casualty of coronavirus corruption could well be public trust, says Cushing, as skewed statistics and bent procurement processes give vaccine sceptics ammunition that could hamper responses to the pandemic.
“In the current scenario in the pandemic, trust is key. We need to ensure that there is trust in the system,” Cushing said.
“Part of transparency is about stopping the corruption, stopping those individuals making profit illegally and immorally from this.
“But it’s also about letting people understand and participate in decision making. If you know what’s going on and you can understand what decisions are being taken and can help shape that, it makes it much easier to hold governments accountable.”
The consequences for societies could reach beyond the immediate disease threat. Without open data and open science, communities will be left out of important conversations and in the dark, says Cushing.
卫生机构需要数据在优先考虑购买哪些药物方面支持“理性决策”。库欣说：“如果那不是那样，那么最好是浪费钱，最糟糕的是，这可能会影响健康成果。”
“治理与健康社会之间的联系正是 - 您想要透明的治理体系，并且他们的透明度越大，更多的人可以参与其中，对该系统有更多的信任。
“That should allow that conversation to happen about where the country goes in terms of health, development, socioeconomic priorities.”
- 这篇文章于4月7日更新，以表明阿道夫·姆科诺（Adolf Mkono）在1月发表讲话，然后坦桑尼亚新任总统萨米亚·苏鲁胡·哈桑（Samia Suluhu Hassan）决定成立了Covid-19-19。
You might also like
[related-articles]This article was originally published onSciDev.Net。阅读来源文章。
发送to a friend
The details you provide on this page will not be used to send unsolicited email, and will not be sold to a 3rd party. See privacy policy.
From Brazil to the Philippines, secretive governments across the world are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic by covering up data and bypassing public procurement rules, undermining trust in health systems, fuelling anti-vaxxers and putting immunisation campaigns at risk.
秘密医疗产品和服务的秘密合同已成为许多国家的规范，而有关COVID-19案件和死亡的数据已被操纵和报告。
当局和国家负责人利用大流行作为探讨致力于开放和交流的公共机构的机会，最糟糕的罪犯组成了冠状病毒罪犯的犯罪师。
在the global South, the repercussions for already struggling health and governance systems could be catastrophic.
Corruption outbreak
This is a tale of two pandemics, says Jonathan Cushing, who leads on global health at the anti-corruption non-profit Transparency International.
库欣告诉说：“您有1909年，然后我们在过去一年中看到的是缺乏透明度 - 由于当时的紧急需求，直接采购立法的利用。”SciDev.Net。
“We’ve seen repeated cases of corruption, and that is the second pandemic in many ways.”
Malpractice, says Cushing, has been reported “around the world, in the Philippines, in Uganda, we’ve seen cases raised in Kenya, Latin America as well”.
“As the pandemic has progressed, we’ve seen the shift from the rush to buy [personal protective equipment] and ventilators … to the procurement of vaccines,” says Cushing.
“What we’re seeing now is a complete lack of transparency.”
“In the current scenario in the pandemic, trust is key. We need to ensure that there is trust in the system,”
Jonathan Cushing, Transparency International’s global health team
Tanzanian President John Magufuli may have been a victim of his own refusal to acknowledge the presence and seriousness of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
6月，Magufuli宣布“电晕疾病已被上帝消除”，使坦桑尼亚“无冠状病毒”。政府停止发布有关案件数量的数据，而疾病监测和倡导则削弱了。
Magufuli’s death — officially from heart problems, but widely believed to be connected with COVID-19 — was announced on 17 March.
Residents of Tanzania’s largest city, Dar es Salaam, toldSciDev.Netit remained to be seen whether Tanzania’s government would reverse Magufuli’s increasingly authoritarian policies. But new president Samia Suluhu Hassan has already marked a departure from her predecessor, pledging to form a scientific advisory committee on COVID-19.
流行病学家说，统计数据将是任何新的证据驱动反应的核心。目前，随着人们继续生病，数据赤字仍然存在。
“What’s lacking now in Tanzania is an enabling environment that allows scientific enquiries on such things as pandemics,” says Frank Minja, a Tanzanian doctor and associate professor of neuroradiology at the Yale School of Medicine’s radiology and biomedical imaging department, in the US.
“Of course, science doesn’t work in isolation, it needs economic and political decisions. But science is a tool that should be used to solve our problems.”
数据in the dark
对于发布统计数据的国家，其中许多已经按摩以揭示现实的玫瑰色版本。
数据操作是一个关键的标志COVID-19 corruption, according to Transparency International. This can have devastating consequences, such as resources misallocation, spikes in case rates as citizens are encouraged to carry on as normal, and increased mistrust in governments when reality does not match with the official version of events.
Multiple studies, including those based on rates of population withCOVID-19 antibodies，建议SARS-COV-2在许多国家比官方统计数据更为普遍。
一项这样的研究，在赞比亚进行，并在TheBMJ, observed “a surprisingly high prevalence of COVID-19 mortality”.
由劳伦斯·姆瓦纳尼达（Lawrence Mwananyanda）领导的研究团队从右边的护理权开始说：“与19岁的普遍叙述相矛盾，Covid-19在赞比亚产生了严重影响。低测试速率的解释很大程度上可以解释出来，而不是COVID-19的患病率较低。
“如果我们的数据可以推广到非洲的其他环境，那么这个问题的答案是，'Covid-19为什么跳过非洲？’这不是。”
In回复, pathologists from the Ministry of Home Affairs and Zambia’s University Teaching Hospital said the conclusions from the Lusaka study were “highly questionable” and could not be extrapolated to all of Sub-Saharan Africa.
Scientists argue that government data indicating low COVID-19 case numbers in Tanzania, Mexico and the Philippines misrepresents the reality of the health crisis. The graph reflects official data sourced by the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 map, as of 26 March.
Researchers in India found that COVID-19 infections had been严重低估了and could be up to 95 times higher than the official numbers. Health and development economist Anup Malani toldSciDev.Netthat the high seroprevalence — the number of people who tested positive for COVID-19 — in the rural areas studied was due to mass migration from the cities to escape lockdown restrictions.
在巴西，该国卫生部在6月从其网站上删除了累计COVID-19，担任总统Jair Bolsonarodeclared that the statisticsdid not “reflect the moment the country is in”.
The supreme court ordered that the data be restored, and thefigures now indicatethat Brazil is among the worst affected countries in the world, as the government appoints its fourth health minister since the pandemic began.
Attacking the messengers
Those who refuse to toe government lines have faced repercussions, from losing their jobs to legal intimidation and verbal attacks.
After she criticised Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte and his government over its handling of the COVID-19 crisis, a barrage of online abuse was directed at Maria Ressa, the founder of the Philippines-based news siteRappler。
雷萨（Ressa）是杜特尔特（Duterte）直言不讳的批评者，但国际记者中心（ICFJ）的分析表明，滥用Ressa的第二高升高与她质疑Covid-19数据的正式报告有关。
“Ressa lives at the core of a very 21st century storm,” says那个报告，由ICFJ全球研究总监Julie Posetti领导。“这是虚假信息和攻击的愤怒 - 可靠的记者受到不受惩罚的在线暴力行为；事实陷入困境和民主国家。”
Posetti says that state threats and digital violence put journalists — and journalism — at risk in the real world. In January, the tenth arrest warrant was issued against Ressa, who is facing multiple libel proceedings, on top of a six-year jail term, which Ressa is appealing.
The red bar indicates the level of ‘highly explicit abuse’ directed at Maria Ressa after she criticised the Philippines’ handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, based on data compiled by the ICFJ.
Anthony Leachon, a leading physician and public health expert in the Philippines, was forced to quit as a special adviser on the COVID-19 taskforce in June after he publicly disagreed with the Duterte administration’s handling of the pandemic, and argued that the taskforce had succumbed to political pressure.
Leachon also criticised the health department, saying its reporting of COVID-19 was unreliable and delayed, and questioned why the government was favouring vaccines from companies with no safety and efficacy data. The Philippines government has approved the Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines for people aged under 65.
Leachon has continued to call on authorities to release real-time data on COVID-19 infections, which he said will allow local officials to quickly respond with appropriate policies.
For speaking independently, Leachon has been ridiculed and mocked by Duterte supporters. The administration’s spokesman, Harry Roque, said that Duterte repeatedly cursed Leachon during a December cabinet meeting on COVID-19.
“This lack of transparency and urgency is the reason why the Philippines is in a mess right now and has fallen behind its peers in the region,” Leachon tellsSciDev.Net。
“我们处于世界上最长的连续锁定状态。我们仍在隔离区，但现在我们正在看到案件的激增……[]我们仍在关于要采购的疫苗，如何以及什么选择指南的辩论中。”
In March, the Philippines received its first delivery of vaccines from the COVAX facility — the international partnership established to support vaccine access for low- and middle-income countries. Leachon warns that the lack of openness and transparency in the country risks undermining confidence in COVID-19 vaccines.
Captive information
随着大流行病的开始，对墨西哥独立信息机构的攻击 - 国家透明度研究所，获得信息和保护（INAI）的攻击。
2019年，总统安德烈斯·曼努埃尔·洛佩斯·奥布拉多（AndrésManuelLópezObrador）任职第一年，Inai报告说政府是legally challengingat least 30 information requests that the institute had approved.
In January, López Obrador announced a proposal to shut down INAI and replace it with a government agency, a move that Human Rights Watch Americas director José Miguel Vivanco called “the perfect recipe for secrecy and abuse”.
“The INAI has played a crucial role in protecting privacy and ensuring the public can access information about government corruption and human rights violations,” Vivanco said.
珍妮特·奥罗佩扎·英格（Janet Oropeza Eng）是民间社会组织基金会的责任和反腐败研究员，他说，Inai对于过去十年来监测联邦政府机构的努力至关重要。
“也许这不是COVID-19,但政府把握现在ld come out and explain what’s causing these deaths. We don’t have the freedom or the facts to say if it is COVID-19.”
阿道夫·姆科诺（Adolf Mkono），居民在坦桑尼亚卡格拉地区
“If INAI disappears or becomes dependent on the executive [branch of government], it would be a regression in terms of independence and autonomy. It is not possible to be both judge and party,” Eng tellsSciDev.Net。
“高管不能命令自己打开信息。对于墨西哥人来说，这将是已经保证的信息权的倒退。”
Transparency International’s Mexico branch has made repeated freedom of information requests for pricing transparency, but “gets nowhere”, according to Jonathan Cushing, from the organisation’s global health team.
“And it’s not unique to Mexico, it’s Argentina, in Pakistan they’re trying the same thing. It’s a complete shutdown,” he says.
Gag orders
Cryptic references to ‘pneumonia’ became one of the only ways Tanzanians could talk openly about the disease outbreak, after the government passed a regulation prohibiting reporting on COVID-19.
Under theonline content regulation，禁止发布“可能造成公共破坏和混乱的公共信息”，包括“在国家或其他地方爆发致命或传染性疾病的爆发，未经各自当局的批准，该信息的内容有关。
Breaches could be met with imprisonment for a minimum of 12 months, a fine of at least five million shillings (US$2155), or both.
Adolf Mkono, a resident of Tanzania’s northern Kagera region, which borders Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and Lake Victoria, says the fear of being charged under the new regulation is stifling information-sharing.
“自去年年底以来，我目睹了许多人抱怨呼吸困难后死亡。这不是正常的。”姆科诺说
“也许这不是COVID-19,但政府把握现在ld come out and explain what’s causing these deaths. We don’t have the freedom or the facts to say if it is COVID-19,” Mkono tells SciDev.Net in an interview conducted in January this year, before the decision by Tanzania’s new President Samia Suluhu Hassan to form a scientific advisory committee on COVID-19. *
Tanzania’s health ministry did not directly respond to these claims whenSciDev.Net寻求评论。但是，传播负责人分享了该部首席秘书Mabula Mchembe的视频，他说：“不对每个抱怨呼吸困难的患者都应该被认为患有Covid-19。我访问了许多医院，我可以得出的结论是，所讨论的COVID-19是基于社交媒体的说法，而不是真的。”
闭门后面的采购
Covid-19-19疫苗生产商要求世界各地的政府签署未披露协议，以使每剂量的价格保持秘密。
联合国毒品和犯罪办公室说：“一些国家已经建立了特殊的委员一月份的政策文件。
“There can be a lack of transparency, and thus a potential risk of corruption in what these agreements entail.”
With emergency procurement procedures and vaccine negotiations hidden from public view, health system corruption can have a speedy — and devastating — knock-on effect for disease containment.
On 27 March, Mexico’s governmentquietly revised its official COVID-19 statistics, acknowledging that the true death toll may be 60 per cent higher than previously reported.
The country went from being称赞by the Pan-American Health Organization for its initial response to the pandemic, to being ranked among theworst performing countriesin the world as cases and deaths climbed.
2020年4月，政府发布了一项开放式法令，授权购买与冠状病毒相关的商品和服务，而无需进行公开招标程序。
The result, according to the data analysis project Covid Purchases (ComprasCOVID.MX), by human rights NGO PODER and data journalism initiative Serendipia, was that almost 95 per cent of Mexico’s procurement contracts in 2020 were direct award contracts — that is, awarded without competition.
This compares with 2019, when about 78 per cent of public contracts were direct awards, according to civil society organisation Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity.
And concerns have been raised about the suitability of companies awarded tenders, with many lacking experience in the medical fields or linked to previous corruption cases.
“令人担忧的问题是，所有级别的政府 - 不仅联邦政府都在滥用紧急法令，继续进行直接奖励，而无需任何限制，”透明国际乡村分支机构墨西哥透明度透明度分支机构董事EduardoBohórquez告诉SciDev.Net。
数据gathered by ComprasCOVID.MX shows that government institutions paid wildly different prices for vital personal protective equipment, such as face masks.
While some government departments paid one Mexican peso — about five US cents — per mask, others paid up to 405 pesos — almost US$20.
Bohórquez says that without a sunset clause in the emergency procurement legislation, Mexico’s public funds and institutions are left vulnerable to corruption.
Vaccines for sale
While there are reports of private vaccine holidays to the United Arab Emirates up for grabs, Pakistan is believed to be the first country to have approved the private import and commercial sale of COVID-19 vaccines.
透明度的拥护者已敦促政府放弃该提案，这将使Sputnik-V疫苗以比全球设定价格高约160％的价格出售。
This would “provide a window of corruption”, as it could mean government vaccines end up in private hospitals for commercial sale and price gouging in the public sector, said Nasira Iqbal, former justice of the Lahore High Court and vice-chair of Transparency International Pakistan, in aletter to the Prime Minister。
“政府不应鼓励这样的政策，以付出透明度为代价的社会某个部分，”伊克巴尔继续说。
作为回应，国家卫生服务部法规和协调部秘书Aamir Ashraf Khawaja表示，私人疫苗的销售只是政府COVID-19的回应的一部分。
“这是一个被认为是联邦的决定government to allow private sector to import vaccine as the national vaccination priorities favoured the healthcare workers and the elderly, involving some lag in reaching other segments of the society,”Khawaja said in a letter。
“可以补充说，政府正在确定最高零售价，为竞争和自由市场动态留下了空间。”
分析师说，当局和私人药品公司之间的潜在利益冲突为腐败留下了机会。
SciDev.Netcontacted the Pakistan government’s Press Information Department for comment, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
一位总部位于巴基斯坦SciDev.Netthat that while there were few confirmed reports of coronavirus corruption in Pakistan, rumours abound in a country known for its systemic and endemic corruption.
“On the policy side, there are rumours of corruption in the purchase of ventilators and in suppressing case and death data in the province of Punjab early on to create an impression that the incidence of the virus was low,” the economist said.
“On the health front, there has been a lot of scepticism on testing for COVID-19. It is again rumoured that for travel purposes, private labs were on purpose providing negative results. This was mainly done for international travel. There was no monitoring, either by the press or by NGOs.”
Additionally, analysts say that theUS$1.386 billion根据国际货币基金组织快速融资工具，尚未完全支付，于2020年4月承诺在2020年4月向巴基斯坦发放。
Open science, open societies
The first casualty of coronavirus corruption could well be public trust, says Cushing, as skewed statistics and bent procurement processes give vaccine sceptics ammunition that could hamper responses to the pandemic.
“In the current scenario in the pandemic, trust is key. We need to ensure that there is trust in the system,” Cushing said.
“Part of transparency is about stopping the corruption, stopping those individuals making profit illegally and immorally from this.
“But it’s also about letting people understand and participate in decision making. If you know what’s going on and you can understand what decisions are being taken and can help shape that, it makes it much easier to hold governments accountable.”
The consequences for societies could reach beyond the immediate disease threat. Without open data and open science, communities will be left out of important conversations and in the dark, says Cushing.
卫生机构需要数据在优先考虑购买哪些药物方面支持“理性决策”。库欣说：“如果那不是那样，那么最好是浪费钱，最糟糕的是，这可能会影响健康成果。”
“治理与健康社会之间的联系正是 - 您想要透明的治理体系，并且他们的透明度越大，更多的人可以参与其中，对该系统有更多的信任。
“That should allow that conversation to happen about where the country goes in terms of health, development, socioeconomic priorities.”
- 这篇文章于4月7日更新，以表明阿道夫·姆科诺（Adolf Mkono）在1月发表讲话，然后坦桑尼亚新任总统萨米亚·苏鲁胡·哈桑（Samia Suluhu Hassan）决定成立了Covid-19-19。
有关冠状病毒的更多信息
