The Ebola Crisis: Emergence of Cosmopolitan Solidarity as a New Principle in Global Health Ethics

Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) or Ebola Hemorrhagic Feverwas recognized in mid 1970s in some African countriesincluding near the Ebola River in Congo. In the recentoutbreaks of the disease the virus caused more seriouseffects on individual patients and also affected countries.Since the invasive function of the virus, it can kill aroundhalf of the infected people. This is not the only dangerouscriterion of the virus since it is extremely communicableeven up to 7 weeks after recovery of survived patients. Atthe time of 2014 outbreak except some supportive caresuch as rehydration and symptom therapies, there was nolicensed treatment or approved vaccines for the disease,although now there are at least one approved vaccine andsome others under trial.EVD outbreak raised many ethical concerns includingthose related the ethical justifiability for use ofunregistered treatments, unapproved pre/post exposureprophylaxis, priority setting for receiving the supportivecare and few and scarce available treatments such theantibody derived from the survivors’ blood, borderscreening/detention of infected people for preventing theoutbreak to be uncontrolled and some other questions.These ethical concerns are usually responded andanalyzed by modern ethical assessment tools such as Four-Principle Approach , introduced by Beauchamp and Childress, by using technics such as specification andbalancing. In addition the importance of taking socialdimension into serious consideration in such situations isa well-recognized socio-ethical aspect, such asengagement of families, NGOs and Charities.But the scope and the nature of the recent internationalhealth crisis like SARS, ZIKA, MERS, H1N1 Flu andspecially EVD showed that a new framework for ethicalevaluation and response is required. For the first time inthe history of UN, the Security Council held an emergencymeeting in September 2014 (2177), which recognizedEVD as a threat for international peace and security. Thisconnection between EVD as a health crisis on one sideand UN Security Council as the international peacekeeperon the other side provides us a very interesting case fordiscussing the issue of health and peace. This paper willtry to discuss the new universal ethical platform, which isnecessary for responding similar coming sitiations basedon the principle of Cosmopolitan Solidarity .

Keywords:

Health , Peace , Ebola , Ethics , CosmopolitanSolidarity