New Delhi hosts BRICS Health Working Group Meeting

• The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare chaired the First Health Working Group (HWG) Meeting under the BRICS framework for the year 2026 in New Delhi on April 15. 

• The meeting brought together senior health officials, technical experts, and delegates from BRICS member countries to deliberate on priority areas of cooperation in public health.

• India officially took over the BRICS chairship from Brazil on January 1, 2026.

• As the BRICS Chair for 2026, India is guided by the overarching theme “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability”, reflecting a people-centric and humanity-first approach.

• BRICS brings together 11 major emerging markets and developing countries of the world.

Highlights of the meeting: 

• Union Health Secretary Punya Salila Srivastava noted that in recent years, the BRICS Health Working Group meetings have paved the way for collaboration on pressing health challenges, including communicable and non-communicable diseases, strengthening of health systems, and improving access to affordable medicines. 

• These efforts have further strengthened cooperation in pandemic preparedness, health technology innovation, and the promotion of Universal Health Coverage.

She proposed two new priority areas under India’s Chairship:

i) BRICS Mission for Healthy Lifestyles, aimed at promoting healthy behaviours and addressing key risk factors such as unhealthy diets, physical inactivity, tobacco use, and harmful use of alcohol.

ii) Promotion of Mental Health and Wellness, focusing on strengthening mental health services, addressing stigma, and integrating mental health into broader public health frameworks.

• The meeting also deliberated on the nine priority areas identified under the BRICS Health Working Group, reflecting a comprehensive and collaborative approach to addressing public health challenges. 

These include: 

i) BRICS TB Research Network.

ii) Collaboration among BRICS Medical Products Regulatory Authorities.

iii) BRICS Integrated Early Warning System for prevention and response to mass infectious diseases.

iv) Digital Health Architecture for continuum of care, including specialised healthcare in remote areas.

v) BRICS Mission for Healthy Lifestyles.

vi) promotion of mental health and wellness.

vii) Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Medicine (TCIM).

viii) Fight against diseases driven by social determinants of health (DDSDH).

ix) BRICS Network of National Public Health Institutes.

• These priority areas aim to strengthen cooperation in research, innovation, regulatory harmonisation, digital health, and equitable healthcare delivery, while reinforcing collective preparedness and resilience among BRICS nations.

The BRICS nations

• The BRICS nations or Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa form the key pillars of south-south cooperation and are the representative voice of emerging markets and developing countries in the global forums such as the G20.

• The grouping has become a 11-nation body now with Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia joining it as new members.

• The acronym BRIC was first used in 2001 by Goldman Sachs in their Global Economics Paper, ‘The World Needs Better Economic BRICs’ on the basis of econometric analyses projecting that the four economies would individually and collectively occupy far greater economic space and would be amongst the world’s largest economies in the next 50 years or so.

• The leaders of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) countries met for the first time in St. Petersburg, Russia, on the margins of the G8 Outreach Summit in July 2006. Shortly afterwards, in September 2006, the group was formalised as BRIC during the First BRIC Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, which met on the sidelines of the General Debate of the UN Assembly in New York City.

• After a series of high level meetings, the first BRIC summit was held in Yekaterinburg, Russia on June 16, 2009.

• It was agreed to expand BRIC into BRICS with the inclusion of South Africa at the BRIC Foreign Ministers meeting in New York in September 2010. Accordingly, South Africa attended the third BRICS Summit in Sanya on April 14, 2011. 

• In 2015, the BRICS established the New Development Bank (NDB) with the purpose of mobilising resources for infrastructure and sustainable development projects in emerging markets and developing countries.

Expansion of BRICS

• BRICS leaders have left the door open to future enlargement as dozens more countries voiced interest in joining a grouping.

• Around 40 countries had shown interest in joining BRICS out of which 23 formally applied for the membership.

• In August 2023, the top BRICS leaders at the grouping’s summit in Johannesburg approved a proposal to admit six countries, including Argentina, into the bloc with effect from January 1, 2024. However, Argentina’s President Javier Milei announced withdrawing his country from becoming a member of the BRICS.

• The decision to expand the bloc is seen as an effort to reshape global governance while putting the voices of the Global South as a key priority area to advance the overall development agenda.

• The BRICS has emerged as an influential grouping as it brings together 11 major emerging economies of the world, representing around 49.5 per cent of the global population, around 40 per cent of the global GDP and around 26 per cent of the global trade.