Brazil is expected to create, by the end of this year, the Centro Brasileiro de Emergências em Saúde Pública (Cbesp, Brazilian Public Health Emergency Center), a permanent structure to deal with epidemics and health crises.
The proposal comes from the Instituto Todos pela Saúde (ITpS, a Brazilian health research institute). The center would operate under the governance of Fiocruz (Brazil's public health research foundation), integrated into the SUS (Brazil's public health system) and the Ministério da Saúde (Ministry of Health), funded by the federal general budget and supplemented by international agreements and its own revenue.
The argument: permanence
"A permanent structure dedicated to the prevention, preparedness and response to public health emergencies will help Brazil react more promptly to crises," said Gerson Penna, director of the ITpS.
The point is less about creating new capacity and more about not having to build it from scratch every time. The center would monitor risks, apply prevention strategies and coordinate work across health, the environment, agriculture and science.
Former Health Minister José Gomes Temporão stressed that specialized governance with a permanent technical staff would deliver "much more agile and appropriate solutions."
What is still missing
The Ministério da Saúde's secretary for health surveillance, Mariângela Simão, said: "We have a pending bill to establish a state policy for disease emergencies."
According to Penna, implementation would begin in 2027, after the legislative debate over the course of 2026.
The toll behind the proposal
The stated reference is Covid-19, which caused some 700,000 deaths in Brazil, in a pandemic that killed more than 7 million people worldwide.
With information from Agência Brasil. Original report by Elaine Patricia Cruz, published on June 20, 2026.
