Abstract
BackgroundIn response to COVID-19 pandemic, the Government of Uganda adopted public health measures to contain its spread in the country. Some of the initial measures included refusal to repatriate citizens studying in China, mandatory institutional quarantine, and social distancing. Despite being a public health emergency, the measures adopted deserve critical appraisal using an ethics and human rights approach. The goal of this paper is to formulate an ethics and human rights criteria for evaluating public health measures and use it to reflect on the ethical propriety of those adopted by the government of Uganda to contain the spread of COVID-19.Main bodyWe begin by illustrating the value of ethics and human rights considerations for public health measures including during emergencies. We then summarize Uganda’s social and economic circumstances and some of the measures adopted to contain the spread of COVID-19. After reviewing some of the ethics and human rights considerations for public health, we reflect upon the ethical propriety of some of Uganda’s responses to COVID-19. We use content analysis to identify the measures adopted by the government of Uganda to contain the spread of COVID-19, the ethics and human rights considerations commonly recommended for public health responses and their importance. Our study found that some of the measures adopted violate ethics and human rights principles. We argue that even though some human rights can sometimes be legitimately derogated and limited to meet public health goals during public health emergencies, measures that infringe on human rights should satisfy certain ethics and human rights criteria. Some of these criteria include being effective, strictly necessary, proportionate to the magnitude of the threat, reasonable in the circumstances, equitable, and least restrictive. We reflect on Uganda’s initial measures to combat the spread of COVID-19 and argue that many of them fell short of these criteria, and potentially limit their effectiveness.ConclusionThe ethical legitimacy of public health measures is valuable in itself and for enhancing effectiveness of the measures. Such legitimacy depends on the extent to which they conform to ethics and human rights principles recommended for public health measures.
Highlights
In response to COVID-19 pandemic, the Government of Uganda adopted public health measures to contain its spread in the country
The ethical legitimacy of public health measures is valuable in itself and for enhancing effectiveness of the measures. Such legitimacy depends on the extent to which they conform to ethics and human rights principles recommended for public health measures
In designing and implementing public health measures including during Public Health Emergency (PHE) such as the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a likelihood of regarding ethics and human rights considerations as of secondary importance
Summary
In response to COVID-19 pandemic, the Government of Uganda adopted public health measures to contain its spread in the country. The goal of this paper is to formulate an ethics and human rights criteria for evaluating public health measures and use it to reflect on the ethical propriety of those adopted by the government of Uganda to contain the spread of COVID-19. We use content analysis to identify the measures adopted by the government of Uganda to contain the spread of COVID-19, the ethics and human rights considerations commonly recommended for public health responses and their importance. We argue that even though some human rights can sometimes be legitimately derogated and limited to meet public health goals during public health emergencies, measures that infringe on human rights should satisfy certain ethics and human rights criteria Some of these criteria include being effective, strictly necessary, proportionate to the magnitude of the threat, reasonable in the circumstances, equitable, and least restrictive. Some of the initial measures included recommended, and in some cases, mandated hand washing; denying students studying in China to return home; voluntary self-quarantine; mandatory institutional quarantine at one’s own cost; suspension of both public and private transport; and imprisonment for noncompliance with the measures [7,8,9]
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