Chandigarh: India will host the 16th BRICS Health Ministers’ meeting in Chandigarh from July 22 to 24, bringing together health ministers and senior officials and technical experts from the 11-member bloc to deepen cooperation on health security, digital health, pandemic preparedness and equitable access to quality healthcare.
The three-day programme, being held as part of India’s BRICS Chairship 2026, will begin with a Senior Officials’ Meeting on Wednesday to finalise the draft ministerial declaration.
This will be followed by the Health Ministers’ Meeting on Thursday, to be chaired by Union Health Minister J P Nadda. The ministers will deliberate on key global and regional public health priorities and consider the adoption of the 16th BRICS Health Ministers’ Declaration.
On Friday, a high-level dialogue focusing on leveraging interoperable digital health infrastructure and responsible artificial intelligence to strengthen continuity of care and build future-ready health systems across BRICS countries will be held.
The event is titled “BRICS Dialogue: From Digital Health Records to AI-Enabled Healthcare – Strengthening the Continuum of Care through Interoperable Data Infrastructure and Responsible Artificial Intelligence”.
This marks India’s fourth BRICS Chairship, following its earlier tenures in 2012, 2016 and 2021, with health cooperation featuring as one the key pillars of its agenda this year.
Addressing reporters here ahead of the ministerial meeting, Union Health Secretary Punya Salila Srivastava said the gathering reflects India’s commitment to advancing collective action on global health priorities under the theme: “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability”.
She said discussions would focus on strengthening cooperation in health security, pandemic preparedness, digital health, innovation, access to affordable medicines, traditional, complementary and integrative medicine (TCIM), tuberculosis, healthy lifestyles, mental wellness and resilient health systems, while furthering the goal of universal health coverage.
“The 16th BRICS Health Ministers’ meeting comes at a time when countries across the world are working to balance the rising healthcare demands, equitable access to quality healthcare, resilient health systems and the need to accelerate progress towards the health-related sustainable development goals,” she said.
She said the meeting would provide an important platform for advancing the health priorities of the Global South through enhanced collaboration and knowledge sharing among BRICS nations.
An official statement said India has retained the existing BRICS health priorities while introducing two new focus areas under its chairship — the BRICS Mission for Healthy Lifestyle and the Promotion of Mental Wellness — reaffirming its commitment to preventive and promotive healthcare.
Under its BRICS Chairship 2026, India has structured the BRICS Health Track around nine priority areas: BRICS TB Research Network, collaboration among BRICS medical products regulatory authorities, and the BRICS Integrated Early Warning System for Prevention and Response to Mass Infectious Diseases.
Digital Health Architecture for Continuum of Care, including Access to Healthcare in Remote Areas, BRICS Mission for Healthy Lifestyle, Promotion of Mental Wellness; TCIM, Fight against Diseases Driven by Social Determinants of Health (DD-SDH) and BRICS Network of National Public Health Institutes are the remaining areas.
These priority areas reflect the collective commitment of BRICS countries to strengthening resilient health systems, promoting innovation, enhancing pandemic preparedness, addressing communicable and non-communicable diseases, expanding equitable access to quality healthcare, and accelerating progress towards universal health coverage, according to an official statement.
Beginning April 15, 2026, India convened 26 technical meetings and expert consultations across these priority areas, bringing together experts from BRICS member countries to build consensus on key health issues ahead of the ministerial meeting.
The meeting will be attended by Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia. Together, the 11 BRICS countries account for nearly half of the world’s population and around 40 per cent of the global GDP.
On Tuesday, India also hosted the BRICS meeting on TCIM here, as part of the broader four-day Health Track programme jointly organised by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the Ministry of Ayush.
Responding to a question on mental health problems, Srivastava said the promotion of mental wellness is a topic that was taken up in the BRICS Health Track event.
“To promote mental wellness, we are working towards the establishment of a BRICS Training Hub Network and a network of Centres of Excellence, with NIMHANS, Bengaluru, being the contributing centre of excellence,” she said.
“The purpose is to address the service gaps by identifying and documenting scalable digital technologies and community-based models for mental health promotion, prevention, early identification, crisis intervention, treatment, rehabilitation and suicide prevention.
“And we collaborate on identifying and replicating evidence-based public awareness programmes and stigma reduction interventions,” she said.
