| Call Number | 14940 |
|---|---|
| Day & Time Location |
R 4:00pm-6:50pm 1402 Vagelos Educ |
| Points | 1.5 |
| Grading Mode | Standard |
| Approvals Required | None |
| Instructor | Safura Abdool Karim |
| Type | LECTURE |
| Method of Instruction | In-Person |
| Course Description | In public health emergencies involving infectious disease, there is often a legitimate necessity to curtail individual rights in the name of protecting the public. Simultaneously, a government’s failure to adequately respond to an emergency may also represent a violation of their obligations. Private actors, philanthropic, commercial or otherwise, can also have a substantial impact on health and responses to public health emergency. The COVID-19 pandemic illustrates these relationships and provides a basis to understand the tensions that arise. The relationship between public health and human rights is a complex and evolving one. From quarantining and mandated isolation in the 14th century to modern lockdown measures and the HIV epidemic, there have been tensions with human rights and in some instances, public health measures have been associated with a range of human rights abuses. In the COVID-19 crisis, many countries drew from this armamentarium of non-pharmaceutical interventions, implementing mass lockdowns and contact tracing that heavily implicated individual rights of freedom of movement and privacy and where the manner of implementation sometimes fell short of human rights standards, leading some places to inappropriate use of criminal law and elevated risk of interpersonal violence. In addition, there remain debates about the use of coercive measures such as vaccine mandates. Global inequity has also shaped governments’ abilities to respond and determined access to life-saving medical interventions and supplies. Price-gouging and other practices of pharmaceutical and medical equipment companies may undermine the public’s right to health while the concentration on vaccine manufacturing capacity limited access to vaccines in the poorest countries. The right to scientifically sound health information, crucial in infectious disease emergencies, is often denied or at least becomes difficult to manage in the context of uncertainty and shifting evidence bases. We are now also coming to terms with the unintended impact public health responses had on the basic rights of persons who lost their livelihoods due to the disease, disruptions to food systems and compromising access to routine healthcare services. In the aftermath of the pandemic, significant international reforms are being undertaken including a revision of the international health regulations and the negotiation of the pandemic treaty. This course will examine this evolution in human rights through the lens of different public health emergencies |
| Web Site | Vergil |
| Department | Population and Family Health |
| Enrollment | 19 students (30 max) as of 9:07PM Tuesday, February 3, 2026 |
| Subject | Population and Family Health |
| Number | P8609 |
| Section | 001 |
| Division | School of Public Health |
| Open To | GSAS, Public Health |
| Note | Dept permission required for non-POPF students (contact cak2 |
| Section key | 20261POPF8609P001 |