Suchergebnisse

This article interrogates the relationship between the development of national diagnostic technologies and the exercise of sovereignty, by analysing a Brazilian project to produce a nucleic acid test (NAT) for the country's blood screening programme. The concept of 'molecular sovereignty' is proposed to demonstrate that exercising sovereignty demands not only technological resources but also a sufficiently powerful and national imaginary to support local knowledge production as a means of advancing national healthcare priorities. First, this research article contextualises the political importance of blood safety for Brazil during its transition to democracy in the 1980s and the creation of its universal healthcare system. Then, it investigates how adopting the NAT led the state to invest in the production of a national technology. Third, the article unpacks the diagnostic test to consider how certain aspects of the project might ultimately strengthen the ability of global capital to cross national boundaries and create new markets. Lastly, it discusses how the project ended up creating a centralised and 'closed' system to avoid leaving the country vulnerable to the entry of global diagnostic companies. This case demonstrates how the molecularisation of blood, through the construction of a unified healthcare system driven by the constitutional right to health, can be deployed to construct imagined communities on the scale of a nation.

When the Zika virus burst onto the international scene in the second half of 2015, the development of diagnostic tools was seen as an urgent global health priority. Diagnostic capacity was restricted to a small number of reference laboratories, and none of the few available molecular or serological tests had been validated for extensive use in an outbreak setting. In the early weeks of the crisis, key funders stepped in to accelerate research and development efforts, and the WHO took responsibility for steering diagnostic standardization, a role it had successfully played during the West Africa Ebola virus outbreak. Yet when the WHO declared the end of the Zika Public Health Emergency of International Concern in November 2016, diagnostic capacity remained patchy, and few tools were available at the scale required in the countries that bore the brunt of the epidemic, particularly Brazil. This article analyses the limited impact of global R&D efforts on the availability of Zika diagnostic options where they were most needed and for those most vulnerable: women who might have been exposed to the virus during their pregnancy and children born with suspected congenital Zika syndrome. The truncated legacies of testing during the Zika crisis reveal some of the fault lines in the global health enterprise, particularly the limits of 'emergency R&D' to operate in geopolitical contexts that do not conform to the ideal type of a humanitarian crisis, or to tackle technical issues that are inextricably linked to domestic struggles over the scope and distribution of biological citizenship. Diagnostic shortcomings, we argue, lie at the heart of the stunning transformation, in less than two years, in the status of Zika: from international public health emergency to neglected disease.

International audience ; Since the first recorded case of COVID-19 on February 26, 2020, Brazil has seen an exponential growth in the number of cases and deaths. The national testing approach has been insufficient to correctly use this tool in the support of containing the epidemic in the country. In this communication, we discuss efforts and challenges to scale-up COVID-19 testing at the Brazilian Unified National Health System (SUS). This communication presents the initial results of the research project created to investigate the political, industrial, technological, and regulatory aspects that may affect the diagnostic and testing capacity for COVID-19 in Brazil. The paper draws on the review of academic literature, media publication, and collection of public data on tests purchase and regulation. It enlists initiatives to enhance PCR testing, national production and development of technologies, as well as regulatory measures to fast-track new tests. Our analysis indicates some points of reflection. Firstly, the lack of a consistent national strategy to fight COVID-19 exarcebated supply problems of diagnostic components. If the country was eventually able to circumvent this situation, it still faces a more structural dependency on the importation of diagnostic components. Secondly, the discontinued funding and distribution of tests may have implied health policy fragmentation and the growing importance of local governments and non-state actors to fighting the epidemics within SUS. Finally, initiatives established since the second semester of 2020 have expanded the testing capacity at SUS. However, it has not been sufficient to control the progress of the epidemic in the country.

International audience ; Since the first recorded case of COVID-19 on February 26, 2020, Brazil has seen an exponential growth in the number of cases and deaths. The national testing approach has been insufficient to correctly use this tool in the support of containing the epidemic in the country. In this communication, we discuss efforts and challenges to scale-up COVID-19 testing at the Brazilian Unified National Health System (SUS). This communication presents the initial results of the research project created to investigate the political, industrial, technological, and regulatory aspects that may affect the diagnostic and testing capacity for COVID-19 in Brazil. The paper draws on the review of academic literature, media publication, and collection of public data on tests purchase and regulation. It enlists initiatives to enhance PCR testing, national production and development of technologies, as well as regulatory measures to fast-track new tests. Our analysis indicates some points of reflection. Firstly, the lack of a consistent national strategy to fight COVID-19 exarcebated supply problems of diagnostic components. If the country was eventually able to circumvent this situation, it still faces a more structural dependency on the importation of diagnostic components. Secondly, the discontinued funding and distribution of tests may have implied health policy fragmentation and the growing importance of local governments and non-state actors to fighting the epidemics within SUS. Finally, initiatives established since the second semester of 2020 have expanded the testing capacity at SUS. However, it has not been sufficient to control the progress of the epidemic in the country.

International audience ; Since the first recorded case of COVID-19 on February 26, 2020, Brazil has seen an exponential growth in the number of cases and deaths. The national testing approach has been insufficient to correctly use this tool in the support of containing the epidemic in the country. In this communication, we discuss efforts and challenges to scale-up COVID-19 testing at the Brazilian Unified National Health System (SUS). This communication presents the initial results of the research project created to investigate the political, industrial, technological, and regulatory aspects that may affect the diagnostic and testing capacity for COVID-19 in Brazil. The paper draws on the review of academic literature, media publication, and collection of public data on tests purchase and regulation. It enlists initiatives to enhance PCR testing, national production and development of technologies, as well as regulatory measures to fast-track new tests. Our analysis indicates some points of reflection. Firstly, the lack of a consistent national strategy to fight COVID-19 exarcebated supply problems of diagnostic components. If the country was eventually able to circumvent this situation, it still faces a more structural dependency on the importation of diagnostic components. Secondly, the discontinued funding and distribution of tests may have implied health policy fragmentation and the growing importance of local governments and non-state actors to fighting the epidemics within SUS. Finally, initiatives established since the second semester of 2020 have expanded the testing capacity at SUS. However, it has not been sufficient to control the progress of the epidemic in the country.

International audience ; Since the first recorded case of COVID-19 on February 26, 2020, Brazil has seen an exponential growth in the number of cases and deaths. The national testing approach has been insufficient to correctly use this tool in the support of containing the epidemic in the country. In this communication, we discuss efforts and challenges to scale-up COVID-19 testing at the Brazilian Unified National Health System (SUS). This communication presents the initial results of the research project created to investigate the political, industrial, technological, and regulatory aspects that may affect the diagnostic and testing capacity for COVID-19 in Brazil. The paper draws on the review of academic literature, media publication, and collection of public data on tests purchase and regulation. It enlists initiatives to enhance PCR testing, national production and development of technologies, as well as regulatory measures to fast-track new tests. Our analysis indicates some points of reflection. Firstly, the lack of a consistent national strategy to fight COVID-19 exarcebated supply problems of diagnostic components. If the country was eventually able to circumvent this situation, it still faces a more structural dependency on the importation of diagnostic components. Secondly, the discontinued funding and distribution of tests may have implied health policy fragmentation and the growing importance of local governments and non-state actors to fighting the epidemics within SUS. Finally, initiatives established since the second semester of 2020 have expanded the testing capacity at SUS. However, it has not been sufficient to control the progress of the epidemic in the country.