Ethical and human rights considerations in public health in low and middle-income countries: an assessment using the case of Uganda’s responses to COVID-19 pandemic

This paper formulates ethics and human rights criteria for evaluating public health measures and uses it to reflect on Uganda’s responses to contain the spread of COVID-19. The study found that some of Uganda’s initial measures violated ethics and human rights principles, arguing that measures infringing on human rights should be effective, strictly necessary, proportionate, reasonable, equitable, and least restrictive. The authors conclude that ethical legitimacy of public health measures is valuable for enhancing their effectiveness and depends on conformity to ethics and human rights principles.