BRICS health and tuberculosis control collaborations during an era of global health

Abstract

In this think piece, I examine the difference introduced by BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) health collaborations in an era of global health. Using tuberculosis control as a grounding example, I show that BRICS collaborations prioritize: state-led solutions, particularly through policies aimed at expanding universal health coverage; scientific and programmatic innovation; experience and technology sharing; clear benchmarks for progress, based on current best practices of control; and flexibility. Unlike international health, BRICS health collaborations are not primarily concerned with preventing the importation of infectious disease across national borders. Nor are they based on global health's concerns about global biosecurity or humanitarian biomedicine. Rather, BRICS collaborative health efforts fall within the nation-state paradigm, while also aspiring towards the global. They remain flexible in their operation, gesturing towards a neoliberal ethic. This flexibility allows BRICS to work within existing structures, while also establishing their own institutions from which to change traditional assistance relationships.

Postsocialism, the psy-ences and mental health

“…This includes historical work emphasizing the circulation of expertise and medical technologies within the Second World War (not all of which radiated out from Moscow), and from the Second to the First and Third Worlds (Marks & Savelli, 2015;Rogers, 2010). More recently, countries such as Russia and China have sought to exert influence over global health and drug policy beyond their borders, with priorities that do not necessarily align with those of the WHO or the central organizations of international health (Bartlett, Garriott, & Raikhel, 2014;Dirlikov, 2015;Harmer & Buse, 2014). In short, lines of difference are no longer predominantly drawn between an Eastern/Western legacy, but rather shifted towards the dichotomy between "local" versus "global" forms of psy-interventions, and towards the study of their encounter, renegotiation, and effect within concrete, situated settings.…”

The Emulation and Adaptation of a Global Model of Clinical Practice Guidelines on Chronic Heart Failure in BRICS Countries: A Comparative Study

“…They regularly engender material infrastructures with perspectives to bring about real changes. For instance, as a consequence of the health ministers' long-standing engagement against tuberculosis (TB) [19] and in an effort to foster collaborative research and developments in this area, BRICS created the South Africa-based TB Research Network. Although such initiatives were initially focused on the field of infectious diseases, more recently, they have started to include non-communicable diseases (NCDs) as well.…”