The pressure for an effective treatment or vaccine for COVID-19 is high. There are more than 2,000 studies on COVID-19 across the world; many of these are trials on humans to develop vaccines, and to test the efficacy of drugs for this new disease.
The urgency of this pandemic presents new, acute ethical challenges in research to be discussed at this webinar. Was Favipiravir approved on the basis of inadequate or flawed trials? I spoke on the ethical imperative of randomised controlled trials when the pandemic is on.
Should human infection studies be used to speed up covid-19 vaccine development? Dr Amar Jesani, editor of the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics, discussed the concerns with this research practice.
Will drugs proved effective be available to all covid-19 patients who need it? Adv Veena Johari of Courtyard Attorneys presented the case study of Remdesivir.