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PERSPECTIVE article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Policy
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1539840
This article is part of the Research Topic Public Health Policies for Improved Oral Health Outcomes View all articles

Standard of prevention for infectious diseases' prevention clinical trials during pandemics: learning lessons for global policies from biomedical HIV prevention clinical trials and a case study of COVID-19

Provisionally accepted
Morenike Oluwatoyin Folayan Morenike Oluwatoyin Folayan 1*Karine Dubé Karine Dubé 2Nicaise Ndembi Nicaise Ndembi 3
  • 1 Center for Reproduction and Population Health Studies, Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR), Lagos, Nigeria
  • 2 University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, United States
  • 3 Institute of Human Virology, School of Medicine, University of Maryland, Baltimore, Maryland, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Lessons from biomedical HIV prevention research indicate that standard of prevention packages evolve over time, and require active engagement of stakeholders and community advocates to define packages acceptable to community members and trial participants. Using COVID-19 prevention research as an example, this paper discusses the reasons why a standard of prevention package must be defined for infectious diseases prevention research, what the minimum content of this package may be, the importance of stakeholder engagement in defining the package, the role of the government, and ethical considerations. As the experience from the HIV pandemic had shown, multiple ethics guidelines argue for a comprehensive standard of prevention package for biomedical HIV prevention trials that does not preclude the inclusion of newly developed HIV prevention tools including those experimental products listed for emergency use during health crisis. In the case of COVID-19, the standard of prevention package should include at a minimum, risk reduction counselling on physical distancing, provision of hand sanitizers, education on how to use available prevention tools, and provision for the possibility of vaccine-induced seropositivity. When pre-exposure prophylaxis studies are conducted for healthcare workers and home carers, personal protective equipment should be provided. Regional and country level regulatory provisions on these issues can provide critical guidance for research design and implementation.

    Keywords: standard of prevention, hiv prevention, Pandemics, Epidemics, Outbreaks, infectious diseases, stakeholder engagement, best practices

    Received: 04 Dec 2024; Accepted: 23 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Folayan, Dubé and Ndembi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Morenike Oluwatoyin Folayan, Center for Reproduction and Population Health Studies, Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR), Lagos, Nigeria

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.