WHO Pandemic Ethics & Policy Summit

Equitable access, solidarity, and global health justice: Bridging the gap between ethics and decision-making in pandemics

From resource allocation and priority-setting, access to vaccines, vaccine mandates, lockdowns, travel restrictions, public health surveillance, and obligations to conduct clinical trials, the COVID-19 pandemic has raised profound ethical challenges on an unprecedented global scale.

At the same time, and also in an unprecedented manner, ethical values like equity, fairness, solidarity, and trust have figured prominently in global political discussions. Despite an abundance of guidance,  the question remains: how much progress, if any, have we made in achieving these values, in advancing towards global health justice? Much has been said about the importance of evidence-informed decision-making, but what have we achieved in terms of ‘Ethics-informed decision-making’? This Summit provides a forum to discuss the translation of ethics into policy making in COVID-19; where we have succeeded and failed; what are the major challenges and what steps need to be taken to improve ethics informed public health decision-making for pandemic preparedness and response.

The Summit is organized by the WHO Heath Ethics and Governance Unit in collaboration with the WHO’s Working Group on Ethics & COVID-19 and the ACT-Accelerator Ethics & Governance Working Group.

Confirmed speakers include: Thalia Arawi, Caesar Atuire, Alena Buyx, Ezekiel Emanuel, Ruth Faden, Anthony Fauci, Christine Grady, Fatima Hassan, Sharon Kaur,  Ilona Kickbusch, Florencia Luna, Roli Mathur, Peter Singer, Jerome Singh, Soumya Swaminathan, Beatriz Thomé, Ross Upshur,  Effy Vayena.