Ethical Principles, social problems of the science and sanitary regulation in the context of the pandemic

Abstract

Introduction: the pandemic of COVID-19 put of relief multiple social problems related with the science and the sanitary regulation, generating ethical tensions around the access to the health, the equal distribution of resources and the respect to the human rights. In front of these challenges, the ethical principles settled down in the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human rights of the UNESCO are presented like mark orientate to guarantee a responsible and fair administration in emergency contexts. 

Objective: to identify the ethical principles that emerge of the social problems of the science during the pandemic from the context of the sanitary regulation.  

Methods: it was a bibliographical revision between December of 2024 and June of 2025, using databases like Medline, SciELO, PubMed and Scopus, with describers related with the bioethics, the sanitary regulation and the pandemic. Through a table work 29 bibliographical references were selected. Those sources were excluded that didn't prepare of complete text, as well as the monographs. 

Development: the inequalities in the access to sanitary services, the falsification of medical products, the tensions among individual rights and collective measures, and the lack of regulatory transparency evidenced the necessity to apply ethical principles as the justice, justness, charity, autonomy, non-discrimination, social responsibility and solidarity. 

Conclusions: the integration of the principles in the taking of scientific and regulatory decisions is crucial to strengthen the genuineness of the sanitary systems, to promote the public trust and to build more inclusive and more sustainable answers before future global crisis