Human rights law can provide a transparent and fair framework for vaccine allocations, researchers suggest.
All countries face the ethical challenge of how to allocate limited supplies of safe, effective COVID-19 vaccines
Researchers say that governments should look to human rights principles and commitments to help them decide who should get priority for the first available doses of COVID-19 vaccine.
A human rights approach would include social vulnerability alongside medical vulnerability in decision-making because health is affected by social factors.
National vaccine roll-outs should take account of these overlapping vulnerabilities
As Governments around the world wrestle with the question of designing a fair system to allocate their COVID-19 vaccine supplies for maximum protection against the pandemic, a team of researchers led by Dr Sharifah Sekalala of Warwick Law School propose that existing human rights legal principles should guide their thinking.
Human rights law can provide a transparent and fair framework for vaccine allocations, researchers suggest.
- All countries face the ethical challenge of how to allocate limited supplies of safe, effective COVID-19 vaccines
- Researchers say that governments should look to human rights principles and commitments to help them decide who should get priority for the first available doses of COVID-19 vaccine.
- A human rights approach would include social vulnerability alongside medical vulnerability in decision-making because health is affected by social factors.
- National vaccine roll-outs should take account of these overlapping vulnerabilities
As Governments around the world wrestle with the question of designing a fair system to allocate their COVID-19 vaccine supplies for maximum protection against the pandemic, a team of researchers led by Dr Sharifah Sekalala of Warwick Law School propose that existing human rights legal principles should guide their thinking.
Human rights law can provide a fair, transparent framework for vaccine allocations Social determinants of health become an important factor in determining whether certain populations are more vulnerable than others.
, Associate Editor
As governments around the world wrestle with the question of designing a fair system to allocate their COVID-19 vaccine supplies for maximum protection against the pandemic, a team of researchers, led by Dr. Sharifah Sekalala of Warwick Law School, proposes that existing human rights legal principles should guide their thinking.
All 171 governments have signed at least one human rights treaty recognizing that people have the right to life and health – but how can this guide decisions on vaccine distribution when demand outstrips supply?
In a disturbing irony, Poland’s decision to remove the “fetal defect” grounds for abortion will have a disproportionately negative impact on the lives and well-being of women with disabilities.
On Oct. 22, Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal ruled that Poland’s law permitting abortion on grounds of “a severe and irreversible fetal defect or incurable illness that threatens the fetus’s life” was unconstitutional. The decision triggered mass protests across Poland and uniting hundreds of thousands of people from all walks of life in their concern over the increasing restrictions on women’s rights.
Gilead is calling.
The de facto ban on abortion that the “constitutional court” in Poland declared today is a step towards a dystopian society where fundamentalists take power.