Pandemic and Human Rights: Issues Emanating from COVID-19 Pandemic and Affecting Human Rights in Kenya

This paper proposes to investigate issues emanating from a Pandemic and affecting human rights. The recommended World Health organization (WHO) COVID-19 prevention guidelines interfered with human rights. Some of the measures implemented by countries included travel restrictions, compulsory isolation after travel, quarantines as well as restrictions on public gathering. These measures led to the impact on fundamental human rights which included the liberty of movement, freedom of association, loss of access to schools, access to health care, substandard Medicare, expired drugs and vaccines for control of the pandemic example of allegations of donated coronavirus vaccines (Political) cholera in Africa, alleged corruption in sourcing/procurement procedures of pandemic consumables and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), hiring of uncensored, medical personnel and corruption in procurement procedures, example Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (KEMSA) in Kenya. Drug trial on human subjects without their consent, lack of full disclosure drug harm. Lebret (2020) confirms the derogation of human rights during a pandemic. Considering that the measures implemented by countries were effective in controlling the spread of the Covid-19 virus, countries continued to implement them at the detriment of human rights. This study was anchored on Health Belief Model. In addition, the paper advocated for audience tailored science communication from human research institutions on pandemic management. That utilizes both informal (examples face to face, an institutes/firm's “grapevine”, where unofficial content is shared among colleagues), formal information (examples are news releases, conferences, websites, and email) and the semi-formal communication networks. Finally, these study findings purpose to contribute to the existing literature on pandemic and affecting human rights in Kenya and the region. The solutions may be helpful in human rights policy formulation during pandemics.