Pan African Bioethics Initiative
Réseau Panafricain de Bioéthique
Pan-Africa Bioethics Initiatives (PABIN)
The Pan-African Bioethics Initative (PABIN) was founded in January 2001 at a pan-African conference on ethics in health research in Lusaka, Zambia. The conference was organized by the World Health Organization (WHO) following an initiative taken by African Malaria Vaccine Testing Network (AMVTN) now African Malaria Network Trust (AMANET) in Arusha, Tanzania, in 1999. PABIN is a pan-African organization whose fundamental aim is to strengthen ethical awareness and discussion across the continent and the secretariat is based at AHRI. The vision of PABIN lies in ensuring the promotion of health through research and the protection of research participants and their communities. The PABIN mission is directed toward building competent and independent in-country decision-making structures for health research. It is primarily focused on the development of strong national ethical review system as well as providing regional GCP standards and training. PABIN is currently conducting survey of African Research Ethics Committee (REC) to assess their response to COVID-19 pandemic and then will be used as a basis to develop an online training for RECs to review various types of epidemic related protocols with COVID-19 as a specific case. This project, which covers both Anglophone and Francophone countries is being conducted in collaboration with Forum of Ethical Review Committee in Asia and the Pacific (FERCAP) and TDR.