ArticleBMC medical ethics2024
A scoping review of ethics review processes during public health emergencies in Africa.
Article in BMC medical ethics, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- A worldwide itinerary of research ethics in science for a better social responsibility and justice: a bibliometric analysis and review.Frontiers in research metrics and analytics · 2025Pooled it
- Awareness, knowledge, attitudes, and practices toward health research ethics and research ethics committees among healthcare postgraduate students, faculty, and professionals in The Gambia.Research ethics · 2026Article
- Sustained and discontinued operational changes to ethics committees in the post-pandemic era: a qualitative study in Kenya.BMC medical ethics · 2026Article
- Ethical approval processes for research during public health emergencies in Africa: Experiences from a multicountry mpox study.Journal of public health in Africa · 2026Article
- Operationalizing rapid implementation science for responsive HIV programs.Frontiers in health services · 2026Article
- Translational barriers to phage endolysin deployment for antimicrobial resistance control in Africa.Frontiers in antibiotics · 2026Review
- Health Research Ethics in Southern Africa: Building Capacity and Cultivating Excellence.Journal of empirical research on human research ethics : JERHRE · 2025Article
- Competencies and operations of research ethics committee members and the protection of research participants: A scoping review.Perspectives in clinical researchReview
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic forced governments, multilateral public health organisations and research institutions to undertake research quickly to inform their responses to the pandemic. Most COVID-19-related studies required swift approval, creating ethical and practical challenges for regulatory authorities and researchers. In this paper, we examine the landscape of ethics review processes in Africa during public health emergencies (PHEs).
methodsWe searched four electronic databases (Web of Science, PUBMED, MEDLINE Complete, and CINAHL) to identify articles describing ethics review processes during public health emergencies and/or pandemics. We selected and reviewed those articles that were focused on Africa. We charted the data from the retrieved articles including the authors and year of publication, title, country and disease(s) reference, broad areas of (ethical) consideration, paper type, and approach.
resultsOf an initial 4536 records retrieved, we screened the titles and abstracts of 1491 articles, and identified 72 articles for full review. Nine articles were selected for inclusion. Of these nine articles, five referenced West African countries including Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, and experiences linked to the Ebola virus disease. Two articles focused on South Africa and Kenya, while the other two articles discussed more general experiences and pitfalls of ethics review during PHEs in Africa more broadly. We found no articles published on ethics review processes in Africa before the 2014 Ebola outbreak, and only a few before the COVID-19 outbreak. Although guidelines on protocol review and approval processes for PHEs were more frequently discussed after the 2014 Ebola outbreak, these did not focus on Africa specifically.
conclusionsThere is a gap in the literature about ethics review processes and preparedness within Africa during PHEs. This paper underscores the importance of these processes to inform practices that facilitate timely, context-relevant research that adequately recognises and reinforces human dignity within the quest to advance scientific knowledge about diseases. This is important to improve fast responses to PHEs, reduce mortality and morbidity, and enhance the quality of care before, during, and after pandemics.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.