Keywords
Abstract
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought up a set of issues relevant to humankind that requires detailed considerations, discussions and informed decision making. In particular, bioethical issues remain to be one of the most difficult for implementation into practice. For instance, the cooperation between physician
and patient in case of the absence of widely accepted treatment methods and protocols, recommendations and safety measures for health-care workers and ethical feasibility of measures for disease control. Moreover, bioethical issues have been raised in the areas of biomedical COVID-19 related research and
scientific publications, ethical consideration of clinical trials and their subsequent implementation into practice, decision making in the time of limited resources, patient care in intensive care units and palliative care, psychological and mental health problems among the general population, exchange and protection of data, acceleration of COVID-19 vaccine development and the estimation of vaccine effectiveness аgainst COVID-19. As a result, the resources of health system of many countries were not sufficient to provide patients with optimal and high-quality medical care to which they are entitled in accordance with international documents. These current life-or-death questions have raised issues acutely similar to the time-period in the past when life-supporting technologies just started to be implemented into clinical practice.
Covid-19 pandemic has changed the bioethical discourse from reproductive technologies, artificial intelligence and possibilities of molecular genetics techniques to utilitarian ethics to support the measures of public health protection.