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This article examines the emergence of a synergy that allowed the early development of what was once considered the best anti-AIDS program in the developing world. Initial responses to AIDS in Brazil during the 1980s and early 1990s were marked by a confrontation between activists concerned with human rights, and a government focusing on biomedical management of the epidemic. After 1992, activists, medical researchers, government officials, international donors like the Ford Foundation, health officers, and multilateral agencies like the World Bank were galvanized to cooperate. This was a complex process of braiding knowledge and practices related to activism, science, public health, governance and philanthropy in which each constituency maintained its independence. The result was a complex, holistic, and nuanced AIDS program. The process helped bridge the gap between knowledge and advocacy, generated public awareness, and was instrumental to reducing AIDS mortality developing local human resources and comprehensive policies. Keywords: AIDS; Brazil; Ford Foundation; World Bank Este artigo analisa a emergencia de uma sinergia que permitiu o desenvolvimento inicial do que ja foi considerado o melhor programa contra a AIDS no mundo em desenvolvimento. As respostas iniciais a AIDS no Brasil durante as decadas de 1980 e 1990 foram marcadas por um confronto entre ativistas, preocupados com os direitos humanos e governos, orientados para uma gestao biomedica da epidemia. Depois de 1992, a colaboracao de ativistas, pesquisadores em medicina, doadores internacionais como a Fundacao Ford, autoridades de saude, e agencias multilaterais como o Banco Mundial foi galvanizada. Foi um processo complexo de entrelacamento de conhecimentos e praticas de ativismo, ciencia, saude publica, governanca e filantropia, em que cada setor manteve sua independencia. O resultado foi um programa de AIDS complexo, holistico e distinto. O processo ajudou a preencher a lacuna entre conhecimento e advocacia, gerou conscientizacao publica e foi fundamental para diminuir a mortalidade por AIDS e construir recursos humanos locais e politicas abrangentes. Palavras-chave: AIDS; Brasil; Fundacao Ford; Banco Mundial, Between the mid-1980s, when the first responses to AIDS appeared, and 1996, when antiretroviral drugs transformed what had been a death sentence into a manageable illness, experts, donors, government officials, [...]

The term 'global health' is rapidly replacing the older terminology of 'international health.' We describe the role of the World Health Organization (WHO) in both international and global health and in the transition from one to the other. We suggest that the term 'global health' emerged as part of larger political and historical processes, in which WHO found its dominant role challenged and began to reposition itself within a shifting set of power alliances. Between 1948 and 1998, WHO moved from being the unquestioned leader of international health to being an organization in crisis, facing budget shortfalls and diminished status, especially given the growing influence of new and powerful players. We argue that WHO began to refashion itself as the coordinator, strategic planner, and leader of global health initiatives as a strategy of survival in response to this transformed international political context.

An analysis of the medical dimension of an effort to 'colonize' or modernize the Peruvian Amazon during the 1940s is presented. The relation among malnutrition, disease and poverty, a rich description of the rural diseases in the Amazon and an energetic denunciation of the living conditions of marginal social groups living in destitution is emphasized.

I present a historical study of the role played by the World Health Organization and UNICEF in the emergence and diffusion of the concept of primary health care during the late 1970s and early 1980s. I have analyzed these organizations' political context, their leaders, the methodologies and technologies associated with the primary health care perspective, and the debates on the meaning of primary health care. These debates led to the development of an alternative, more restricted approach, known as selective primary health care. My study examined library and archival sources; I cite examples from Latin America.

This article analyzes how the Peruvian doctors Carlos Enrique Paz Soldán and Juan B. Lastres were intermediaries in the circulation, transfer and adaptation of the knowledge produced by historians of medicine from Perú, through the United States and Europe. These efforts were part of the conviction that medical humanism would train physicians with empathy for their patients and that past Peruvian medical practices had to be part of universal history. This allowed Peruvians to participate, at least for some time, in the medical history international network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]