Guidance and strategies to streamline ethics review and oversight of COVID-19-related research, 7 April 2020

Abstract

Faced with the COVID-19 pandemic, we have the moral duty to conduct research that generates evidence to maintain, promote and improve health care delivery and decision-making, and to define policies for managing and mitigating the pandemic. In order to efficiently respond to this health emergency, it is necessary to adapt existing ethics review procedures and search for alternatives to reduce as much as possible the practical obstacles to conducting research. This document offers health authorities and ethics review committees guidance and strategies with which to implement rapid and rigorous ethics review and oversight processes for COVID-19-related research with human subjects.