Decolonizing Science Diplomacy: A Case Study of the Dominican Republic’s COVID-19 Response

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic forced healthcare systems globally to handle a dramatic surge in healthcare utilization while also taxing available testing resources. In the context of healthcare systems in Latin America and the Caribbean, COVID-19 added to the existing burden of infectious diseases related to endemic infections such as arboviruses and HIV. In the Dominican Republic, testing is supplied mostly by the private sector and a national public laboratory. The surge in testing demands laid bare a lack of installed capacities both in laboratory facilities and equipment and trained staff in molecular biology laboratory procedures. This article discusses a case of how science diplomacy and a relatively new law fostering public-private partnerships allowed a university to play a major role in public health response while generating knowledge to inform public policy decisions in an unprecedented manner in the country. Science diplomacy is discussed in the context of decolonization and the importance of the local gaze when creating academic partnerships in the context of global health emergencies.

“Digital Health Diplomacy” in Global Digital Health? A call for critique and discourse

“…28,29 In a recent successful example of DHD, the Dominican Republic set up a rapid response for COVID-19 as a public-private collaboration of university and government actors that created platforms for rapid diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection in hospitals and community-based settings. 30 This improved the delivery of results and data analysis and led to a study sequenced the country's circulating virus genome through an international collaboration with an Italian partner.…”

“…56 Strategies to avoid such coercion include greater reliance on South-South cooperation, with improved collaboration between states and non-state actors (eg, universities, research organizations, nongovernmental organizations) in the Global South. 30,31 Where the beneficence of actors alone can prove insufficient, technological solutions may prove more reliable.…”

Genomic Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 Variants in the Dominican Republic and Emergence of a Local Lineage

“…According to the 2019 Global Health Security (GHS) Index, the DR was underprepared for the early detection and molecular surveillance of emerging and re-emerging pathogens compared with other Latin American countries [ 19 , 20 ]. However, we established a scientific partnership between local health authorities, academia, and international centers to deploy a genomic surveillance initiative to further analyze complete SARS-CoV-2 genomes to ease the understanding of variant and lineage circulation in multiple provinces and municipalities in the Dominican Republic [ 15 , 21 ]. We performed a comprehensive analysis of SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences for sequences available from March 2020 until February 2022.…”