BRICS Leaders Put Health at the Heart of New Delhi Summit’s Push for Lasting Change

Source: Devdiscourse | Original Published At: 2026-09-22 07:52:08 UTC

Key Points

• The 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi placed access to reliable healthcare, affordable medicines, and stronger pandemic preparedness within its broader sustainable development agenda.
• WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus welcomed the adoption of the New Delhi Declaration and called for greater investment in primary health care and sustainable health financing.
• Summit health commitments built on the 16th BRICS Health Ministers' Meeting in Chandigarh, including stronger health systems, wider access to medicines and vaccines, and progress in digital health.
• BRICS leaders endorsed the BRICS Integrated Early Warning System and a strengthened Network of National Public Health Institutes to improve surveillance, early warning, and outbreak response.
• Support was expressed for completing negotiations on the Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing annex to the WHO Pandemic Agreement.
• The summit highlighted science, research, digital health, and artificial intelligence as tools to advance universal health coverage, with WHO offering cooperation to turn commitments into action.