Health research has made spectacular strides over the past few decades. The value of health research is obvious and irrefutable. What is not so apparent is that people who participate in research may be harmed during the process. Africa prides itself in having some of the most respected universities globally. It is a continent of immense research potential. At the same time, Africa suffers from many of the health burdens of low-income regions. While it affords many research opportunities, this creates the potential for the misuse of power on vulnerable individuals and populations.

This book explores why participants in health research require protection. It also explains how ethical principles and the law can assist inter alia research ethics committees, researchers, funders and institutions at which research is conducted, to safeguard the rights and dignity of individuals contributing to the research enterprise. It engages with this imbalance and examines how well-intentioned aims of ethical health research can be achieved while simultaneously maximising the protection of research participants. It draws on local and international documents and expertise to inform the resolution of many ethical dilemmas and complexities that inevitably arise in health research.

Health Research Ethics: Safeguarding the Interests of Research Participants provides a solid understanding of the normative values for protecting research participants against exploitation, harm and wrong. Since research ethics is multidisciplinary, this book will be of value to a range of professionals and academics inter alia those from the health sciences, social sciences, and legal disciplines.

Table of contents: 1. Introduction to Pandemics and Healthcare. Principles, Processes and Practice 2. Pandemics: Global Health Security 3. An overview of ethical issues in the context of pandemics and healthcare 4. Selected medico-legal issues relating to South Africa's response to the COVID-19 pandemic 5. Health research, ethics and pandemics: Challenges and Recommendations. 6. The role of the news media during pandemics 7. Corruption, leadership and the corrosion of public health system capabilities in South Africa 8. An understanding of the supply, distribution and use of personal protective equipment during pandemics 9. Pandemics, health equity and the social determinants of health 10. Pandemics: Managing Psychosocial Dimensions for the Public Good 11. Why health economics input and other economic consideration are necessary when managing pandemics 12. Curriculum change and teaching innovations in health sciences: An essential requirement in the era of pandemics 13. eHealth in the era of pandemics 14. Data Science and Artificial Intelligence in the Management of COVID-19. The Gauteng Department of Health, a showcase 15. The development of vaccines and immunological therapies in pandemics 16. Epidemiology, diagnostics and surveillance: Applications during pandemics 17. COVID-19 in South Africa: Lessons from implementing a new national hospital surveillance platform 18. Mental health, psychiatric disease, and COVID-19 in urban South Africa 19. Pandemics and primary health care 20. Pandemics and critical care 21. Pandemics and management of infectious diseases 22. Pandemics and paediatrics 23. Provision of maternal and reproductive healthcare services during pandemics 24. Pandemics and the surgical disciplines About the editors: Ames Dhai, a member of the Academy of Science South Africa is Founder and Past Director of the Steve Biko Centre for Bioethics at the Wits Faculty of Health Sciences, Visiting Professor of Bioethics and Health Law at the Wits School of Clinical Medicine and Specialist Ethicist at the Office of the President of the South African Medical Research Council. She is a leading authority in Bioethics both internationally and locally. Daynia Ballot, currently head of School of Clinical Medicine at Wits University is a neonatologist with a special interest in neonatal research in South Africa, particularly in neonatal sepsis, determinants of survival in very low birth weight infants and the neurodevelopmental outcome of high-risk newborns. She is an NRF-rated researcher. Martin Veller, a vascular surgeon, is past dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences of the University of the Witwatersrand. His leadership roles include that of previous Professor and Head of the Department of Surgery, head of the Division of Vascular Surgery and President of the World Federation of Vascular Societies.

This book provides healthcare and legal practitioners and students at all levels with the theory and practical application necessary to understand and apply bioethics, human rights and health law to their present and future work. The topics of bioethics, human rights and health law are part of the core curriculum for all students in Health Sciences in South Africa. Bioethics, Health Law and Human Rights: Principles and Practice, therefore, comes at no better time.

As the book is a guide, it does not deal exhaustively with the topics discussed. Instead, it aims to give healthcare and legal practitioners some general guidelines which it is hoped will be of practical use to them.