Public health governance on the Brazil-Bolivia border: what the pandemic teaches us?

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to present and reaffirm the importance of shared public health management on the Brazil-Bolivia border. To this end, bibliographic and documentary surveys were carried out, as well as interviews with 14 experts who form the Community of Inquiry, an investigation method developed by John Dewey that provides a useful lens for studies on shared management, as it emphasizes the plurality of actors beyond the actions of the State, demonstrating how public health problems are dealt with in the region. Specifically, we detail part of COVID-19's first operations (February to June 2020) in the municipalities of Corumbá and Ladário (Brazil) and Puerto Quijarro and Puerto Suarez (Bolivia). Recognizing the political dimension of the problematic situation, we rekindle the importance of governance for combating the COVID-19 pandemic and for the shared management of other urgent local epidemics, such as dengue and H1N1 on the border.