Ethics in global health research: the need for balance

Global health research often needs collaboration between various organisations and oversight from many research ethics committees (RECs), including those from partner institutions, national committees, ministries of health, and funders, which increases administrative burden and time. Maintenance of the highest ethical standards in research is paramount; unfortunately ethics breaches are not uncommon.1 In view of the real possibility of ethical wrongdoing, worldwide health research must abide by transparent, rigorous, and effective procedures of ethics review.