The World Health Organization chief angrily slammed recent comments made by scientists suggesting a vaccine for the new coronavirus should be tested in Africa as “racist” and a hangover from the “colonial mentality”.

“Africa cannot and will not be a testing ground for any vaccine,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual news conference, insisting “we will follow all the rules to test any vaccine or therapeutics all over the world… whether it is in Europe, Africa or wherever.”