BRICS adopts New Delhi Declaration to boost joint disease surveillance and medical product regulation

During the two-day BRICS Summit in Delhi, the bloc adopted the New Delhi Declaration outlining an extensive health cooperation agenda. A dedicated sub-working group will develop a Brics Integrated Early Warning System to strengthen surveillance, early warning and rapid response to pandemics, zoonotic threats and antimicrobial resistance. Member countries will extend an existing memorandum of understanding among national regulators to ensure coordinated approval and distribution of safe, effective medical products.

The declaration also promotes the use of artificial intelligence in digital health, expands local production of medicines, vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics, and supports joint research on tuberculosis, a mental-health training hub network coordinated by Bengaluru’s National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, and traditional, complementary and integrative medicine. The World Health Organization’s coordinating role is reaffirmed, and continued engagement with the WHO Pandemic Agreement’s Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing Annex is emphasized.