COVID-19 has created a ramifying public health, economic, and political crisis throughout many countries in the world. While globally the pandemic is at different stages and far from under control in some countries, now is the time for public health researchers and political scientists to start understanding how and why governments responded the way they have, explore how effective these responses appear to be, and what lessons we can draw about effective public health policymaking in preparation of the next wave of COVID-19 or the next infectious disease pandemic. We argue that there will be no way to understand the different responses to COVID-19 and their effects without understanding policy and politics. We propose four key focuses to understand the reasons for COVID-19 responses: social policies to crisis management as well as recovery, regime type (democracy or autocracy), formal political institutions (federalism, presidentialism), and state capacity (control over health care systems and public administration). A research agenda to address the COVID-19 pandemic that takes politics as a serious focus can enable the development of more realistic, sustainable interventions in policies and shape our broader understanding of the politics of public health.

BackgroundLittle is known about the long-term drug costs associated with treating AIDS in developing countries. Brazil's AIDS treatment program has been cited widely as the developing world's largest and most successful AIDS treatment program. The program guarantees free access to highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) for all people living with HIV/AIDS in need of treatment. Brazil produces non-patented generic antiretroviral drugs (ARVs), procures many patented ARVs with negotiated price reductions, and recently issued a compulsory license to import one patented ARV. In this study, we investigate the drivers of recent ARV cost trends in Brazil through analysis of drug-specific prices and expenditures between 2001 and 2005.Methods and FindingsWe compared Brazil's ARV prices to those in other low- and middle-income countries. We analyzed trends in drug expenditures for HAART in Brazil from 2001 to 2005 on the basis of cost data disaggregated by each ARV purchased by the Brazilian program. We decomposed the overall changes in expenditures to compare the relative impacts of changes in drug prices and drug purchase quantities. We also estimated the excess costs attributable to the difference between prices for generics in Brazil and the lowest global prices for these drugs. Finally, we estimated the savings attributable to Brazil's reduced prices for patented drugs. Negotiated drug prices in Brazil are lowest for patented ARVs for which generic competition is emerging. In recent years, the prices for efavirenz and lopinavir–ritonavir (lopinavir/r) have been lower in Brazil than in other middle-income countries. In contrast, the price of tenofovir is US$200 higher per patient per year than that reported in other middle-income countries. Despite precipitous price declines for four patented ARVs, total Brazilian drug expenditures doubled, to reach US$414 million in 2005. We find that the major driver of cost increases was increased purchase quantities of six specific drugs: patented lopinavir/r, efavirenz, tenofovir, atazanavir, enfuvirtide, and a locally produced generic, fixed-dose combination of zidovudine and lamivudine (AZT/3TC). Because prices declined for many of the patented drugs that constitute the largest share of drug costs, nearly the entire increase in overall drug expenditures between 2001 and 2005 is attributable to increases in drug quantities. Had all drug quantities been held constant from 2001 until 2005 (or for those drugs entering treatment guidelines after 2001, held constant between the year of introduction and 2005), total costs would have increased by only an estimated US$7 million. We estimate that in the absence of price declines for patented drugs, Brazil would have spent a cumulative total of US$2 billion on drugs for HAART between 2001 and 2005, implying a savings of US$1.2 billion from price declines. Finally, in comparing Brazilian prices for locally produced generic ARVs to the lowest international prices meeting global pharmaceutical quality standards, we find that current price...

RESUMOObjetivo: a proposta deste estudo foi traduzir e validar o King´s Health Questionnaire (KHQ) para mulheres brasileiras com incontinência urinária. Métodos: 134 pacientes com incontinência urinária, confirmada pelo estudo urodinâmico, foram recrutadas em ambulatório de Uroginecologia. Inicialmente, traduzimos o questionário KHQ para a língua portuguesa (do Brasil) de acordo com critérios internacionais. Devido às diferenças da língua, fizemos a adaptação cultural, estrutural, conceitual e semântica do KHQ, para que as pacientes compreendessem as questões. Todas as pacientes responderam duas vezes o KHQ, no mesmo dia, com dois entrevistadores distintos, com intervalo de 30 minutos de uma entrevista para a outra. Depois de 7 a 14 dias, a aplicação do questionário foi repetida numa segunda visita. Foram testadas a confiabilidade (consistência interna intra e inter-observador) e validade do constructo e discriminativa. Resultados: foram necessárias várias adaptações culturais até obtermos a versão final. A consistência interna intra-observador (alfa de Cronbach) das diversas dimensões oscilou de moderada a alta (0,77-0,90) e a consistência interna inter-observador oscilou de 0,66 a 0,94. Na validação do constructo, obtivemos correlação de moderada a forte entre os domínios específicos para incontinência urinária e manifestações clínicas que, sabidamente, afetam a qualidade de vida dessas pacientes. Conclusão: o KHQ foi adaptado ao idioma português e para a cultura brasileira, mostrando grande confiabilidade e validade, devendo ser incluído e utilizado em qualquer estudo brasileiro de incontinência urinária. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Incontinência urinária; Qualidade de vida; Questionários; Saúde da mulher; ValidadeABSTRACT Purpose: the proposal of the present study was to translate and to validate King´s Health Questionnaire (KHQ) for Brazilian women with urinary incontinence. Methods: a hundred and thirty-four patients with urinary incontinence, confirmed by urodynamic study, were enrolled from the outpatient clinic of Uroginecology. Initially, we translated the KHQ into the Brazilian Portuguese language in agreement with international criteria. Due to language and cultural differences we performed a cultural, structural, conceptual, and semantic adaptation of the KHQ, in order to make sure that patients were able to fully understand the questions. All patients answered the KHQ twice on the same day, within an interval of 30 min, applied by two different interviewers. After 7 to 14 days, on a second visit, the questionnaire was applied again. Reliability (intra-and interobserver internal consistency), construct and discriminative validity were tested. Results: several cultural adaptations were necessary until we reached the final version. The intra-observer internal consistency (alpha of Cronbach) of the several dimensions varied from moderate to high (0.77-0.90), and the interobserver internal consistency varied from 0.66 to 0.94. Moderate to strong correlation was detected among the specific KHQ urinary incontinence do...

Brazil has one of the developing world's largest, and arguably most successful, AIDS treatment programs. In this paper we review the treatment program, including controversial policies that Brazil has used to promote widespread local and global access to AIDS treatment. We also examine the lessons learned from this program and highlight the challenges Brazil faces, including the rising costs of AIDS treatment and changes in donors' funding priorities. Finally, we explore the relevance of Brazil's treatment program for other countries and its broad implications for global AIDS and health policy.

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Immunohistochemical staining detected higher number of mast cells than histochemistry. The higher number of mast cells observed in inflamed lesions could indicate the participation of these cells in the inflammatory response in odontogenic lesions. The prevalence of degranulated mast cells in the deep region suggests intense activity of these cells, possibly related to growth of cystic lesions.

COVID-19 is the most significant global crisis of any of our lifetimes. The numbers have been stupefying, whether of infection and mortality, the scale of public health measures, or the economic consequences of shutdown. Coronavirus Politics identifies key threads in the global comparative discussion that continue to shed light on COVID-19 and shape debates about what it means for scholarship in health and comparative politics. Editors Scott L. Greer, Elizabeth J. King, Elize Massard da Fonseca, and André Peralta-Santos bring together over 30 authors versed in politics and the health issues in order to understand the health policy decisions, the public health interventions, the social policy decisions, their interactions, and the reasons. The book’s coverage is global, with a wide range of key and exemplary countries, and contains a mixture of comparative, thematic, and templated country studies. All go beyond reporting and monitoring to develop explanations that draw on the authors' expertise while engaging in structured conversations across the book.

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