The text to be adopted was tabled at the National Assembly during a plenary session on March 29th 2022.

Human health research in Cameroon will soon be governed by a new legal framework. The government has just submitted a bill to the National Assembly, meeting in ordinary session since 11 March 2022.

Its objective is to ensure the protection of participants in research on human diseases, particularly in the context of clinical trials.

It is composed of 72 articles grouped into eight chapters. The text reflects the government’s desire to put in place a strategic framework to define the guiding principles that may guide research projects in the medical field.

To this end, it determines the potential participants in the research project. These are living persons, deceased persons, sociological groups, vulnerable persons, pregnant women, embryos and foetuses in vivo.

This law in the making contains the rules applicable to health research, the obligations of the investigator or promoter of a project. It also lays down the rules governing medical research as well as the sanctions applicable in the event of a breach of their obligations to participants.

It also regulates the freedom of consent of the research participant, the right to information, the secrecy of private life and the confidentiality of personal data.

The draft law on human health research has been drawn up in a context in which the need for a framework for research is obvious.

There have been many failures in this area in recent years. The most recent case is the occurrence of the Covid-19 pandemic in Cameroon in 2020. The evolution of the disease has led researchers to develop products and carry out therapeutic trials on people without appropriate upstream control.