News and blogs

Global health emergencies aren’t restricted by language. As we see with the current COVID-19 pandemic, the virus isn’t limited to one country or continent – it affects everyone.

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics warmly welcomes news of the Health Research Authority (HRA) public involvement service for COVID-19 studies.

A new policy briefing from the Nuffield Council on Bioethics highlights a need for action to ensure that vaccines and treatments for COVID-19 are offered fairly, to avoid deepening inequalities for disadvantaged populations already hit hardest by the pandemic.

Together with The Global Health Network, we have created a new e-learning for researchers covering the core ethical issues that arise when conducting research in global health emergencies.

In order to exit lockdown safely, the UK will need to be able to identify virus hotspots and have a robust track and trace process in place to ensure that people who might be infected know that they need to self-isolate.

In most emergencies, affected communities play a key role in initiating and leading response activities – in stark contrast to the stereotype of people overwhelmed by the emergency waiting helplessly for help from outsiders.

Evidence reviews that explore community agency and community engagement in four global health emergencies have been published by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics.

For a week or so now the public discourse on the UK’s COVID-19 epidemic has been shifting from the horror of the daily death count to the hope that there may be a way of relaxing the restrictions that have been placed on citizens’ freedom of movement and assembly.

A mantra of recent government policy reporting in recent weeks is that they are only following the science. The science recommended the lockdown, and the science will let us know when it can be relaxed, apparently. It tells us what tests need to be done for whom and what protective equipment is needed for whom. How exactly can it do this?

Join us as we consider some of the issues that may be particularly challenging and important in connection with COVID-19 research in low and middle income settings.

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics and Involve have jointly written to the Prime Minister today setting out suggestions for greater transparency and public involvement as the UK moves towards phase two of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In their recent statement on digital contact tracing, NHSX, the NHS Unit leading digital transformation of the NHS, acknowledge that the public will need to trust this new technology for it to be effective in tackling COVID-19, and that NHSX will seek to earn that trust by working with ‘transparent standards of privacy, security and ethics’.