Global Health, Humanity and the COVID-19 Pandemic

This volume interrogates global health and especially the scourge of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the role that science has played in mitigating the human experiences of pandemics and health over the centuries. Science, and the scientific method, has always been at the forefront of the human attempt at undermining the virulent consequences of sicknesses and diseases. However, the scientific image of humans in the world is founded on the presumption of possessing the complete understanding about humans and their physiological and psychological frameworks. This volume challenges this scientific assumption. Global health denotes the complex and cumulative health profile of humanity that involves not only the framework of scientific researches and practices that investigates and seeks to improve the health of all people on the globe, but also the range of humanistic issues - economic, cultural, social, ideological - that constitute the sources of inequities and threat to the achievementof a positive global health profile. This volume balances the argument that diseases and pandemics are human problems that demand both scientific and humanistic interventions.
Francis Egbokhare is a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Ibadan, a public intellectual and a former president of the Nigerian Academy of Letters (NAL), Nigeria. His areas of specialization include ethics and citizenship; culture and development, grammar, phonology and sociolinguistics. In addition, he has published works on open and distance education and management of higher education. He is the co-editor (with R. P. Schaefer) of A Dictionary of Emai (2007), A Grammar of Emai (2016), and Class Marking in Emai (2019).

Adeshina Afolayan is a Professor of African Philosophy at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. His areas of specialization include philosophy of politics, African cultural studies, and African philosophy. He is the author of Philosophy and National Development in Nigeria (2018), a co-editor of the Palgrave Handbook of African Philosophy (2017), Pentecostalism and Politics in Africa (2018), and Pathways to Alternative Epistemologies in Africa (2021), editor of Identities, Histories and Values in Nigeria (2021), and co-author of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti: Afrobeat, Rebellion and Philosophy (2022).