Ethical rationale for the ebola "ring vaccination" trial design

A. Rid and F.G. Miller

American Journal of Public Health, 2016, vol. 106, issue 3, 432-435

Abstract: The 2014 Ebola virus epidemic is the largest and most severe ever recorded.With no approved vaccines or specific treatments for Ebola, clinical trials were launched withinmonths of the epidemic in an unprecedented showof global partnership.One of these trials used a highly innovative "ring vaccination" design. The design was chosen for operational, scientific, and ethical reasons\-in particular, it was regarded as ethically superior to individually randomized placebo-controlled trials. We scrutinize the ethical rationale for the ring vaccination design. We argue that the ring vaccination design is ethical but fundamentally equivalent to placebo-controlled designs with respect to withholding a potentially effective intervention from the control group. We discuss the implications for the ongoing ring vaccination trial and future research.

Keywords: Ebola vaccine, clinical trial (topic); contact examination; ethics; human; methodology; procedures, Clinical Trials as Topic; Contact Tracing; Ebola Vaccines; Humans; Research Design (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2015.302996_7

DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2015.302996

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