COLLABORATING CENTER
The Bioethics Program collaborates with the Bioethics Regional Program from the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) and with the Ethics’ unit from the World Health Organization (WHO) on the development of different bioethics’ areas, with special emphasis on research ethics.
OBJETIVES
The Global Network of WHO Collaborating Centers for Bioethics (the Network) was established to support the WHO-HQ Global Health Ethics Unit (Geneva) to implement its mandated work in the field of ethics and health, including:
• Articulating ethical evidence-based policy options (WHO core function)
• Advancing “ethics-and rights-based approaches to health promoted within WHO and at national and global levels” (WHO organization-wide-expected result) and
• Increasing “capacity to assess and act upon ethical issues in public health at country, regional and global levels and within the Organization.” (WHO/HQ-specific expected result)
The Network augments the contributions of individual WHO Collaborating Centers for Bioethics (CC) by fostering connections and synergies between CCs to achieve enhanced results, to facilitate resource mobilization, and to strengthen (institutional) capacity, in particular at regional level with respect to public health ethics, research ethics and clinical ethics.
ACTIVITIES
During 2016, the Bioethics Program participated in the analysis and development of ethical recommendations regarding the Zika epidemic performed by the PAHO’s Bioethics Regional Program. See the document here
The Program collaborates with PAHO nowadays. For example, it helped in the critical revision of the translation into Spanish of the new CIOMS – WHO Guides and in different activities related to research ethics and to its strengthening within the region.
At the same time, the Bioethics Program works with other CCs and the WHO on the ethical issues that vector-borne diseases pose (malaria, dengue, chagas, zika, etc.) and on the ethical issues that ageing poses. The Bioethics Program is a member of the Working Group in charge of elaborating ethical Guides in vector-borne diseases jointly with the Centre for Human Bioethics from Monash University.
OTHER COLLABORATING CENTERS
• Centre of Medical Ethics and Law, Stellenbosch University, Cape Town, South Africa.
• Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, New York City, USA
• Ethics Programs, University of Miami, Miami, USA
• Joint Centre for Bioethics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
• Institute of Biomedical Ethics and HIstory of Medicine, University of Zurich, Switzerland
• Centre for Biomedical Ethics, National University of Singapore, Singapore
• Centre for Human Bioethics, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
