Page 55 - GHES-2-2

Global Health Econ Sustain International scientific cooperation in public health

Table 5. Indicators and quantities for the impact dimension to July 2023. Researchers from Brazilian universities
and institutions have collaborated with researchers from
Item Indicator Quantity institutions and universities abroad on all products
1 Participants in international events 14,396 generated as part of the international collaboration of the
promoted by the project “Syphilis No!” Project. All these foreign universities and
2 Brazilian and foreign participants 685 nations are also listed in Table 6, grouped by indicator.
in international missions
3 Participants impacted by the production of 45,172 Of note, developing a rapid test platform for diagnosing
courses and open educational resources through syphilis prompted two patent filings (Barros et al., 2022).
international cooperation (enrolled participants) The current methods for syphilis testing pose barriers,
4 Professionals who received post-doctoral training 5 especially for case management, as the results are
5 Professionals trained in doctoral programs 4 insufficient for finalizing the diagnosis, which requires
6 Professionals trained in Master's Degree courses 8 additional tests for positive cases. Brazil currently spends
7 Professionals trained in undergraduate courses 2 around 50 million dollars annually on the import of rapid
Total 60,272 tests for syphilis alone (Lara, 2021; Ornelas & Gaspar,
2019). The screening test developed by the “Syphilis No!”
Source: Adapted from the accountability reports for Decentralized Project through international cooperation could reduce
Execution Terms (TED) No. 54 and 111/2017.
these annual costs by up to 75%. This may translate to
considerable savings for Brazil, as well as the possibility of
in the courses offered on AVASUS as part of the cooperation. exporting to other countries.
As these are OER, they are available under a Creative
Commons 4.0 license: CC BY-NC-SA, thus achieving an The following section discusses the significance of
even greater social reach. This is because the content can be each indicator for answering the research questions. Our
completely reused, restructured, and remixed openly and discussion is framed from the perspective of the SDGs of
freely for the entire population without needing copyright the UN’s 2030 Agenda (UN, 2015; UN & Department of
or license fees (Santos, 2013). This aspect increases the Economic and Social Affairs, 2015).
dissemination and visibility of the results of international 4. Discussion
cooperation, as a much larger number of people can be
reached. It also helps to improve the cost-effectiveness of the In this study, we found that 36 institutions participated in
products developed and the per capita value per participant. international scientific cooperation as part of the “Syphilis
In this sense, we observed that the products of the No!” Project, outstripping the original target of only four
project’s international cooperation have effects that benefit participating institutions – a prominent sign of the project’s
not only the group of researchers in their stricto sensu success.
graduate work. They also benefit society in that other people Achieving and exceeding the goal of international
can utilize the results of the applied research and thus cooperation, especially in terms of the number of international
contribute to combating the syphilis epidemic in Brazil. cooperation agreements signed, shows that syphilis control is
At the same time, the results of international also a problem in the context of global health and international
cooperation have contributed to a significant improvement human mobility. The issue is exacerbated by the major social
in the overall cost-efficiency of the project. Especially, changes of present times. According to Luo et al. (2021),
when it comes to achieving the cooperation objective, syphilis is currently not only a problem limited to low- and
which was clearly beyond its scope, as the original project middle-income countries but also a serious public health
proposal was limited to four institutions. Of note, a total of challenge in several countries worldwide. Unfortunately, it
36 institutions have been reached so far. This result is eight continues to be one of the main causes of infant mortality and
times greater than the number of international institutions international human mobility (Ramos et al., 2023). This helps
originally proposed. This is also a positive aspect in terms to explain the interest of institutions from other countries in
of the relevant social impact of the “Syphilis No!” Project, participating in the project.
which outweighs the efficiency and effectiveness of the Therefore, international cooperation has made it
project as originally intended. possible to share knowledge, expand the expertise
developed in Brazil, and connect with the experiences
3.4. Products dimension acquired in the countries participating in the cooperation.

Table 6 shows the indicators and the number of products This was a positive aspect, as it created an opportunity
achieved during the study period, i.e., from January 2018 for knowledge transfer while developing skills to master

Volume 2 Issue 2 (2024) 10 https://doi.org/10.36922/ghes.3037