Comité d'éthique Inserm

2_VolREthics Initiative - First Africa Regional Workshop - May 24, 2022

The VolREthics international initiative on ethical issues related with the involvement of healthy volunteers (HVs) in biomedical research was launched by the Ethics Committee of the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research (Inserm). A first international meeting, held in February 2022 at UNESCO Paris premises, identified research situations where the rights, well-being and safety of HVs may be jeopardized as well as good practices implemented in some countries to address these issues. Building on this first meeting, regional seminars are now being organized with two primary purposes: to update our knowledge on the scientific and ethical issues in specific regions of the world, and to build a repository of new insights and policy recommendations to safeguard the rights, well-being and safety of HV globally. SCOPE: Focusing on Africa, the first regional seminar is hosted by the University of Cape Town (South Africa) and Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (Mozambique). It will discuss solutions to protect HVs from being exploited. Beginning with a summary of issues identified to date, it will then be open to discussions on real-life situations experienced by attendees from Sub-Saharan Africa, which include the participation of several healthy volunteers from Uganda.