How BRICS Countries Are Partnering To Fix A 90% Mental Health Treatment Gap
Cooperation areas
Source: The Indian Express | Original Published At: 2026-09-25 03:11:55 UTC
Key Points
- A newly established BRICS Network of Centres of Excellence in mental health will be piloted by India to reduce treatment gaps across member countries.
- The network aims to integrate mental healthcare into primary health centres, upskill frontline and non-specialist health workers, and expand task-sharing and digital telehealth platforms.
- BRICS countries will share approaches including China's stigma-reduction storytelling, Indonesia's digital crisis platform, South Africa's community screening tools, UAE's virtual-reality interventions, Russia's technology-assisted assessment, and India's tele-mental-health services.
- Joint work will cover collaborative research, capacity building, knowledge exchange, operational blueprints for digital platforms, and training for non-specialist health workers.
- The network is being operationalised through participating centres, formal agreements, a governance protocol, a steering committee, and technical working groups, with NIMHANS as coordinating centre.
- Cooperation will also address data privacy, cybersecurity, ethical AI deployment, and human-rights-based mental-health policies.