The Covid-19 Pandemic Battle By Health Professionals Vis-À-Vis Some Ethical Principles
Emmanuel Kelechi Iwuagwu Ph.D
Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, University of Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria
Anthony Uzochukwu Ufearoh Ph.D
Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, University of Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria
Keywords: Covid-19, Pandemic, Health professionals, Ethical principles, Medical interventions
Abstract
This work titled “The Covid-19 Pandemic Battle by Health Professionals Vis-à-vis Some Ethical Principles” consists of the employment of some ethical principles to examine the challenges confronting the health professionals in the fight against this deadly virus, so as to determine the moral admissibility of their interventions. The highly infectious new strain of Coronavirus codenamed Covid-19, SARS-CoV-2 or 2019-nCoV which emerged in Wuhan in December 2019 was in January 2020 declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) because of is ravaging effects. This declaration by WHO immediately challenged the health professionals and other relevant bodies to urgently commit significant human and material resources to combat the spread of this deadly virus. This task came with a lot of challenges on the part of the health professionals. This work using the rationalistic, normative and critical methods employed seven ethical principles namely: the principle of double effect (two-fold effect), justice, beneficence, utility, respect for persons, liberty and solidarity to examine the ethical challenges faced by this body. The work did this by briefly reviewing the activities of the health professionals in this fight, their challenges, their prescribed pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical countermeasures and other guidelines as containment strategies as well as the infractions noticed in their activities and guidelines. This was done with these chosen ethical principles to determine whether their activities were in line with the basic ethical provisions. In conclusion the work, while commending the selfless efforts of the health professionals in this battle, condemned some of their unethical practices. The work insists that ethical considerations must be paramount in all their activities and guidelines, that the philosophy of the end justifying the means must be rejected and that every means employed must be ethically justifiable.