Leonardo De Castro

The COVID-19 pandemic led to a health crisis with widespread social and economic adverse effects. To address the fallout, vaccine development has been pursued in record time. Several vaccines have already been deployed in countries worldwide, but as the supply is limited, these have been provided selectively. Various allocation schemes, premised on ensuring an equitable distribution, have prioritized the elderly, given their apparent susceptibility. For the Philippines and possibly other countries with extremely limited supplies, the elderly need not always be given primary preference. The level of available supplies can be so low that the immediate focus of allocation should be on mitigating both infection and transmission. The proposed alternative vaccine allocation framework gives priority to groups rendered more vulnerable, such as those who are unable to avoid prolonged exposure to possibly infected people because of medical necessity or occupational conditions. Vulnerable groups include healthcare and other essential workers as well as patients requiring continued healthcare services. The proposed allocation scheme is meant to be complementary to concurrent public health measures, which have to be maintained though made less restrictive as the pandemic is brought under control.

Our article aims to provide a comprehensive portrayal of how seven Asian jurisdictions have sought to address the challenge of genetic discrimination (GD) by presenting an analysis of the relevant legislation, policies, and practices. Based on our findings, policy discussion and action on preventing or mitigating GD have been narrowly framed in terms of employment, insurance, disability, marriage, and family planning. Except for South Korea, none of the jurisdictions we examined has adopted specific legislation to prevent GD. However, for Asia to truly benefit from its recent scientific and technological progress in genomics, we highlight the need for these jurisdictions to engage more proactively with the challenges of GD through a coordinated regulatory and governance mechanism.

Using a fair allocation approach, this paper identifies and examines important concerns arising from the Philippines’ COVID‐19 response while focusing on difficulties encountered by various sectors in gaining fair access to needed societal resources. The effectiveness of different response measures is anchored on addressing inequities that have permeated Philippine society for a long time. Since most measures that are in place as part of the COVID‐19 response are meant to be temporary, these are unable to resolve the inequities that have led to the magnitude of morbidity and mortality associated with the pandemic. These cannot improve the country’s readiness to deal with pandemics and other emergencies in the future.Transition to a new normal recognizes the possibility that other infectious diseases could come and endanger our health security. Our pandemic experiences are proving that having an egalitarian society will serve the interests not only of disadvantaged sectors but also of everybody else, including the privileged. Response measures should thus take the opportunity to promote equity by giving importance to the concerns of the underprivileged and vulnerable while giving preference to initiatives that can be sustained beyond the period of the current pandemic.

A patient’s age serves as a very useful guide to physicians in deciding what disease manifestations to anticipate, what treatment to offer for certain conditions, and how to prepare for possible emergencies. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, determining treatment options on the basis of a patient’s chronological age can easily give rise to unjustified discrimination. This is of particular significance in situations where the allocation of scarce critical care resources could have a direct impact on who will live and who will die. This paper examines the fairness of recommendations contained in resource allocation guidelines in the Philippines that have implications for the way elderly patients could be treated or excluded from some forms of critical care treatment in the context of the ongoing Corona virus emergency.

Withers M, et al. J Glob Health Sci. 2020 Jul;2:e25. https://doi.org/10.35500/jghs.2020.2.e25