Between absence from alma-ata and prevsaúde: Primary health care in the twilight of the Brazilian dictatorship

Abstract

Drawing on personal documents from Ernesto Geisel and press reports, this article discusses the background to the decision by Brazil not to take part in the International Conference on Primary Health Care held in Alma-Ata, USSR, in 1978. It is suggested that the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had different views on the importance of the meeting in Kazakhstan, resulting in their submitting conflicting recommendations to the president of Brazil. It also investigates how the precepts consolidated in the Declaration of Alma-Ata were shared among Brazilian health specialists of different ideological persuasions, even to the point of serving as a blueprint for programs devised under the dictatorship, with implications for the development of later initiatives.