Resources

Organizing the donation of convalescent plasma for a therapeutic clinical trial on Ebola Virus Disease: The experience in Guinea

This resource reports on the successful organization of donor mobilization and plasma collection as part of the Ebola-Tx clinical trial from November 2014 to July 2015 in Conakry, Guinea, the challenges they faced, and efforts made to address these.

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Challenges in preparing and implementing a clinical trial at field level in an Ebola emergency: A case study in Guinea, West Africa

This resource describes the main challenges of the implementation of a trial in the Ebola treatment center of Guéckédou. Following the principles of the Good Clinical Research Practices, it reports the aspects of the community’s communication and engagement, ethical conduct, trial protocol compliance, informed consent of participants, ongoing benefit/risk assessment, record keeping, confidentiality of patients and study data, and roles and responsibilities of the actors involved.

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Popular concerns about medical research projects in sub-Saharan Africa – a critical voice in debates about medical research ethics

This resource aims to move beyond the dismissal of stories about blood-stealing and trade in body parts as ‘mere’ rumour, based on erroneous belief or traditional superstition, and to instead appreciate them as modern commentaries on social relations that involve, and extend far beyond, scientific medical research.

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Ethics and the ethnography of medical research in Africa

This resource outlines two emerging approaches to medical ethics, and summarises each of seven papers selected from the conference for inclusion in this special issue on ethics and ethnography, and finally highlights two areas of lively debate at the conference itself: the appropriateness and value of ethics guidelines and review boards for medical research; and the ethical review of social science research.

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