Vol VI, Issue 3 Date of Publication: July 16, 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.20529/IJME.2021.029

Views
, PDF Downloads:

Convalescent plasma, political narrative, and public health ethics in the Covid-19 pandemic

Simran Agrawal
Anup Agarwal
Yogesh Jain
Abstract:
Convalescent plasma therapy emerged as an early experimental therapy for the treatment of Covid-19. However, despite limited data regarding its safety and efficacy, the therapy was extensively publicised by multiple politicians as a cure. We analyse the impact of this political narrative around medical therapeutics on the pandemic using the coherentist model of public health ethics. The clinical benefits of the therapy are evaluated in terms of reduction in mortality and disease progression as compared to the potential transfusion-related adverse events. Political advocacy of therapeutics might hamper the autonomy and decision-making of individuals and institutions. Marketing and monetisation of convalescent plasma might cause inequitable distribution and unregulated use. It also creates an economic burden on the government and healthcare which should be justified by the additional cost/effectiveness ratio of the therapy. This article exemplifies the inadvertent effects and ethical challenges following political narratives about medical therapeutics and the importance of involving ethics in designing policies concerning public healthcare.


Copyright and license
©Indian Journal of Medical Ethics 2021: Open Access and Distributed under the Creative Commons license ( CC BY-NC-ND 4.0),
which permits only non-commercial and non-modified sharing in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.

Full Text

HTML | PDF

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
Please restrict your comment preferably to 800 words
Comments are moderated. Approval can take up to 48 hours.

Help IJME keep its content free. You can support us from as little as Rs. 500 Make a Donation