In recent public workshops and working group meetings, the Forum on Microbial Threats of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) has examined a variety of infectious disease outbreaks with pandemic potential, including those caused by influenza (IOM, 2005) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) (IOM, 2004). Particular attention has been paid to the potential pandemic threat posed by the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, which is now endemic in many Southeast Asian bird populations. Since 2003, the H5N1 subtype of avian influenza has caused 185 confirmed human deaths in 11 countries, including some cases of viral transmission from human to human (WHO, 2007). But as worrisome as these developments are, at least they are caused by known pathogens. The next pandemic could well be caused by the emergence of a microbe that is still unknown, much as happened in the 1980s with the emergence of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and in 2003 with the appearance of the SARS coronavirus. Previous Forum meetings on pandemic disease have discussed the scientific and logistical challenges associated with pandemic disease recognition, identification, and response. Participants in these earlier meetings also recognized the difficulty of implementing disease control strategies effectively. Ethical and Legal Considerations in Mitigating Pandemic Disease: Workshop Summary as a factual summary of what occurred at the workshop.

This book examines the often tough questions raised by infectious diseases through essays that explore a host of legal and ethical issues. The authors also offer potential solutions in order to ensure that past errors are not repeated in response to future outbreaks. The essays touch on a number of key themes, including institutional competence, the accountability and responsibility of non-state actors, the importance of pharmaceuticals, and the move towards a rights-based approach in global health. Readers gain insights into such important questions as follows: How can we help victims in other countries? What (if any) responsibility should be placed upon international organizations whose actions exacerbate infectious diseases? How can we ensure that pharmaceutical research helps all communities, even those who cannot afford to pay for the products? While broadly covering global health law, the book adopts an inter-disciplinary approach that draws on public international law, philosophy, international relations, human rights law, and healthcare economics. As such, it is a valuable resource for academic libraries, appealing to scholars and postgraduates engaged in relevant research, as well as to those engaged with global health and policy at the international level.

The increasing emergence, re-emergence, and spread of deadly infectious diseases which pose health, economic, security and ethical challenges for states and people around the world, has given rise to an important global debate. The actual or potential burden of infectious diseases is sometimes so great that governments treat them as threats to national security. However, such treatment potentially increases the risk that emergency disease-control measures will be ineffective, counterproductive and/or unjust. Research on ethical issues associated with infectious disease is a relatively new and rapidly growing area of academic inquiry, as is research on infectious diseases within the field of security studies. This volume incorporates ethical and security perspectives, thus furthering research in both fields. Its unique focus on the intersection of ethical and security dimensions will, furthermore, generate fresh insights on how governments should respond to infectious disease challenges. Readers should include professionals and scholars working in infectious disease, epidemiology, public health, health law, health economics, public policy, bioethics, medical humanities, health and human rights, social/political philosophy, security studies, and international politics.

In recent public workshops and working group meetings, the Forum on Microbial Threats of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) has examined a variety of infectious disease outbreaks with pandemic potential, including those caused by influenza (IOM, 2005) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) (IOM, 2004). Particular attention has been paid to the potential pandemic threat posed by the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, which is now endemic in many Southeast Asian bird populations. Since 2003, the H5N1 subtype of avian influenza has caused 185 confirmed human deaths in 11 countries, including some cases of viral transmission from human to human (WHO, 2007). But as worrisome as these developments are, at least they are caused by known pathogens. The next pandemic could well be caused by the emergence of a microbe that is still unknown, much as happened in the 1980s with the emergence of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and in 2003 with the appearance of the SARS coronavirus. Previous Forum meetings on pandemic disease have discussed the scientific and logistical challenges associated with pandemic disease recognition, identification, and response. Participants in these earlier meetings also recognized the difficulty of implementing disease control strategies effectively. Ethical and Legal Considerations in Mitigating Pandemic Disease: Workshop Summary as a factual summary of what occurred at the workshop.

The COVID-19 Pandemic will be seen as having had a profound effect on how we live and work, as well its economic and health repercussions. But it also brought ethical issues and challenges into focus, from ‘Fake News’ to issues of individual freedom. This edited collection addresses these issues and others, including vaccine distribution, incentivization, administration, and mandates; the unprecedented challenges faced by healthcare workers; crisis communication and response conundrums: and societal burdens. This is a companion book to Ethical Implications of COVID-19 Management: Evaluating the Aftershock, also published by Ethics International Press.

This guidance is an update of WHO global influenza preparedness plan: the role of WHO and recommendations for national measures before and during pandemics, published March 2005 (WHO/CDS/CSR/GIP/2005.5).

This topical volume illuminates ethical issues brought to the fore by the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on a broad range of case studies from different regions, it provides insights into the multiple and complex ways in which the pandemic has shaped media ethics. The chapters employ a wide range of innovative theoretical and methodological approaches to dissect enduring and emerging ethical questions during the pandemic, providing lucid accounts of axiological dimensions in pandemic discourses, ethics of emotional mood, ethical challenges and dilemmas in news reporting, propaganda, misinformation, disinformation and Othering. While the case studies in this book are unique, the authors have extrapolated common strands from their analysis of ethical issues applicable to any other country or region during the pandemic, contributing unique perspectives on how media ethics are circumscribed by global health pandemics. The book will appeal to researchers, academics and practitioners at all levels in the fields of media studies, journalism, communication, media sociology and public health, as well as general readers and policymakers who are keen to learn more about how global health crises illuminate critical ethical issues confronting the media.