The current situation of the corona pandemic is extremely challenging for all health care institutions involved. The ethics commissions are currently receiving a large number of submissions of projects on corona research. Understandably, the interest in evaluating patient data on new therapies, analysing cohorts or evaluating data on certain pre-existing conditions is extremely high.

The most important goal of swissethics is to protect patients in the context of research. A further goal is to contribute to supporting scientific quality in research. In order to protect the participants during the corona pandemic, a particularly structured coordination is required among the participating institutions: only projects that generate valuable data and whose quality meets scientific standards should be carried out. The ethics committees and swissethics therefore call on hospitals, universities and participating institutions to implement a structured coordination. Prior consultation between the departments is essential for this purpose.

To promote transparency, swissethics already publishes all clinical trials and research projects approved by an ethics committee. From now on, all submitted COVID-19 projects will also be published on the dedicated COVID-19 wepage on swissethics.ch. Please find out which projects are already underway to avoid national duplications.