Introduction: In the twenty-first century, infectious diseases pose a major challenge to public health. With the emergence of increasingly complex infections, more extensive and demanding medical care is needed, which causes many ethical dilemmas among employees, which are mainly related to the principles of fairness, benevolence, harmlessness and respect for one’s autonomy. When treating patients with infectious diseases, both standard precautions and precautionary measures based on the transmission of infections, including isolation, are applied. Ethical issues arise in particular with the introduction of isolation and compulsory vaccination, which are the most common and important measures to contain infections. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to define the medical treatment of patients with infectious diseases from an ethical point of view. We investigated what dilemmas healthcare professionals face in the care of patients with infectious diseases and what ethical dilemmas and issues arise in isolation and vaccination. Methods: A systematic review of domestic and foreign professional literature has been made on the topic of ethics and medical treatment of infectious patients. We searched by keywords: infectious diseases, ethics, epidemic, pandemic, vaccination, isolation, and disease outbreak in Slovenian, English and German, in databases DIKUL, COBBIS, PubMed, Medline, Google Scholar, Web of Science, Science Direct and OIJN. Results: A central problem among healthcare professionals is the fear of caring for patients with infectious diseases, as they fear exposure to infection and transmission to their loved ones. Guidelines on patient treatment and patient data protection are not sufficiently clear or are not available to all employees. The health care system is not suitably prepared; there is a lack of equipment, and hospitals do not have the facilities to establish isolation. Patient isolation raises issues of violation of patients 'rights, and isolation itself affects patients' mental health. Ethical issues in vaccination arise from fear of the side effects of vaccination, the belief that there is no risk of infection, that the vaccine causes disease, and that the vaccine is ineffective. Discussion and conclusion: Healthcare professionals lack the necessary knowledge in the field of infection control. Employees are exposed to infections and have the right to adequate information, training and protection, but hospitals do not have adequate conditions. Patients' rights could also be violated in terms of data protection, dignity and freedom of movement. Although vaccination has become fairly safe and effective over the years, vaccination still raises issues of confidence in the safety and efficacy of vaccines; the perception that the risk of infection is low and therefore vaccination is not necessary; and inaccessibility in terms of distance, cost.
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