Protection of individual and collective health: ethical-legal issues and opportunities for public health after COVID-19

ABSTRACT

The Istituto Superiore di Sanita (the National Institute of Health in Italy), as the technical-scientific body of the Italian National Health Service, has a crucial role in the COVID-19 pandemic management in Italy. In this period the ISS Bioethics COVID-19 Working Group has been established to deal with the multiple ethical issues raised by the pandemic. The spread of SARS-CoV-2 has made it necessary to address both clinical ethics questions and public health ethics dilemmas. In the Working Group experts in multiple disciplines - i.e., clinical medicine, public health, epidemiology, paediatrics, palliative care, law, philosophy, biomedical research, nursing sciences and, of course, bioethics - have been debating. This volume contains different Working Group members' contributions and viewpoints, that reflect the multiplicity of disciplines and experiences in an epochal emergency.