Realigning Pakistan's Bioethics Center during Covid-19

Abstract

The arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic in Pakistan necessitated that the Centre of Biomedical Ethics and Culture in Karachi realign its activities to changing realities in the country. As Pakistan's only bioethics center, and with no guidelines available for allocation of scarce medical resources, CBEC developed "Guidelines for Ethical Healthcare Decision-Making in Pakistan" with input from medical and civil society stakeholders. The CBEC blog connected to the center's bioethics programs for students from Pakistan and Kenya shifted to Covid-related issues specific to the context of existing social and political realities within these countries. As part of its outreach activities, CBEC initiated a popular Facebook series, #HumansofCovid, as an experience-sharing platform for health care professionals and members of the public. Narratives received vary from those by frustrated physicians under quarantine to those concerning street vendors left jobless and a transsexual person in whose opinion "social distancing" is not a new phenomenon for their communities.