The development of modern information telecommunication (ITC) technology and its use in telemedicine plays an increasingly important role in facilitating access to some diagnostic services even to people living in the most remote areas. However, physical and economical constraints in the access to broad band data-transmission network, still represent a considerable obstacle to the transmission of images for the purpose of tele-pathology.

Since 2010, five newly emerging economies collectively known as ‘BRICS’ (Brazil, India, Russia, China and South Africa) have caught the imagination, and scholarly attention, of political scientists, economists and development specialists. The prospect of a unified geopolitical bloc, consciously seeking to re-frame international (and global) health development with a new set of ideas and values, has also, if belatedly, begun to attract the attention of the global health community. But what influence, if any, do the BRICS wield in global health, and, if they do wield influence, how has that influence been conceptualized and recorded in the literature?

The current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused a global shortage of medical masks, leaving most exposed health personnel without appropriate protection.Since the beginning of the outbreak, the World Health Organization WHO) has revised several times the recommendations on general use of facemasks. Until recently, WHO recommended to limit the use of facemasks to symptomatic people and advised against off-standard solutions. Moreover, recommendations differ among and within countries, causing public confusion and individual initiative.There is wide consensus that universal appropriate use of masks may contribute both to contain the epidemic and to reduce the burden on national procurement, if a community production approach is followed. Especially in low-middle income countries, due to the scarce capacity of national industrial production or import, the use of masks produced at community level may become the only viable option. For the purpose ad hoc guidelines will be needed.Current knowledge and experience call for further and updated review of global and national guidelines to provide clear and consistent criteria to ensure the widest availability and appropriate use of facial protection, bearing in mind populations in socio-economic disadvantaged settings.

The Covid-19 pandemic has dramatically shown the level of interconnectedness of the human population, the direct relation between human health and the ecosystem, as well as the enormous ethical challenges required for a global response. Relatedly, society has been directly confronted by issues of ‘Global health,’ both in terms of awareness of health conditions and health systems resiliency all around the world, as well as in terms of governance of the worldwide response and its implications at national and local levels. While Global health is often used as a cosmetic label for neocolonial approaches, it is really an interdisciplinary approach consisting of the interaction between globalization and the determinants of health. Thus, it involves the ecosystem and its transformation and implies a systemic ‘One Health’ decolonized approach in the definition of its strategies. The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the inequities and the limits of the current hegemonic Global health system governance; calling for ethics to provide a renewed, comprehensive, inclusive, and decolonized conceptualization of Global health.

Since the early stage of the current pandemic, digital contact tracing (DCT) through mobile phone apps, called “Immuni”, has been introduced to complement manual contact tracing in Italy. Until 31 December 2021, Immuni identified 44,880 COVID-19 cases, which corresponds to less than 1% of total COVID-19 cases reported in Italy in the same period (5,886,411). Overall, Immuni generated 143,956 notifications. Although the initial download of the Immuni app represented an early interest in the new tool, Immuni has had little adoption across the Italian population, and the recent increase in its download is likely to be related to the mandatory Green Pass certification for conducting most daily activities that can be obtained via the application. Therefore, Immuni failed as a support tool for the contact tracing system. Other European experiences seem to show similar limitations in the use of DTC, leaving open questions about its effectiveness, although in theory, contact tracing could allow useful means of “proximity tracking”.