Bioethics Programme
Bioethics is the discipline that seeks to clarify these and many other ethical problems that arise in health: when conducting research with human subjects, when formulating and implementing public health policies and when providing health care. Bioethics is not a code of precepts but a discipline consisting of analytic activity based on ethical principles and criteria that guide practice in the different areas related to health.
- Under what conditions is it ethical to conduct investigations with children?
- Is it acceptable to conduct studies with placebo when there is already an effective treatment for the condition being studied?
- Is it ethical to require that persons with infectious diseases remain in a hospital against their will?
- When resources for a specific treatment are limited, who should receive treatment or who could be denied treatment?
- Is genetic enhancement acceptable?
- Under what conditions is it morally correct to artificially extend the life of persons?
- Is it acceptable to compensate financially those persons who donate vital organs?
- Are all methods of assisted reproduction ethically acceptable?
AHO work
Our mission is to collaborate with countries and governments in the development of bioethics. For this, we strengthen capacities in bioethics in Africa, and provide support to governments and to AHO to incorporate bioethics in their policies and activities. Our work covers all three areas of bioethics: research ethics, clinical ethics and public health ethics. The Bioethics also houses AHO’s Ethics Review Committee. It ensures that research with human subjects in which AHO is involved is ethical.