September 2015
GHES will start in October 2015 at the WHO HQ in Geneva, Switzerland, and events will be broadcast live online.
The Global Health Ethics Seminars (GHES) to be held in October will provide a forum for leading ethicists, health care workers, policy makers and patients from across the world to come together and provide practical answers to the major moral and ethical questions that arise during times of global health crises.
As the recent Ebola epidemic in western Africa demonstrated, public health issues are no longer contained by national borders – a public health crisis in one country can quickly spread to its neighbours and impact the rest of the global community, and vice versa. In these scenarios, ethical questions are of central importance.
The seminars are being coordinated by the University of York’s Centre for Global Health Histories, which is part of the Department of History.
Dr Abha Saxena, Coordinator for Global Health Ethics at the WHO, said: “Public health is no longer limited within the confines of national boundaries. Events that occur in one country have the potential to impact on the health of people living in other countries, whether or not they share a common border. Ease of travel, virtual social networking, and the possibility to store and share biological specimens and genetic materials have shrunk this world into what is commonly called a ‘global village’. This invariably leads to a myriad of ethical questions and concerns.
The Global Health Ethics Seminar Series provides an opportunity to raise the issues, challenge the global community, debate and provide solutions on a common platform.
GHES will start in October 2015 at the WHO HQ in Geneva, Switzerland, and events will be broadcast live online before expanding to selected WHO Regional and Country Offices. Registration for the live broadcasts is free and on a first-come first-served basis. Further detailed information on upcoming events will be available soon.
Further information:
Visit the Global Health Histories Project
Visit the Global Health Ethics Unit of the World Health Organisation
Visit the Wellcome Trust
Visit the University of York’s Centre for Global Health Histories
Source: University of York
