The announcement of 2026 as the Year of Health Protection confirms the priority of close interaction among the CIS member states in this area.The fundamental basis of the interaction is the Concept of Cooperation of the CIS Member States in the Field of Public Health (in Russian), approved in a new edition by the Decision of the Council of Heads of Government of the CIS on June 5, 2025.

Over 35 years, an effective system of interaction has been formed in the CIS to ensure the sanitary and epidemiological well-being, to increase access to medical care for the population and combat socially significant diseases.

The key role in implementing integration plans and projects is played by the CIS Council for Cooperation in Health (in Russian), which unites the heads of health ministries and chief sanitary physicians of the member states. The Council is an authoritative platform for the professional dialogue, defining common approaches in medicine and exchanging experience.

There are more than a dozen interstate commissions, coordination and expert councils, as well as working groups that exchange best practices and scientific developments on issues of drug supply and sanitary regulation, problems of infectious and non-infectious diseases, and a number of other areas, conduct joint events and strengthen the interaction in the interests of preserving health throughout the Commonwealth.

XXXVII meeting of the CIS Council for Cooperation in Healthcare. St. Petersburg, 2025.

Ten basic organizations (in Russian) currently operate under the auspices of the CIS Council for Cooperation in Healthcare, specializing in a wide range of areas, from therapy and preventive medicine, healthcare informatization, quality control, and financing of medical care to oncology, hematology, traumatology and orthopedics, psychiatry and narcology, as well as responding to epidemiological threats.

XXXVII meeting of the CIS Council for Cooperation in Healthcare. St. Petersburg, 2025.

An important step was the signing of the Protocol on Amendments to the Agreement of the CIS Member States on Cooperation in the Creation of Compatible National Telemedicine Systems (in Russian) on May 24, 2024.

The CIS Interparliamentary Assembly has developed over 50 model laws in the healthcare sector. For example, in November 2025, at the Assembly’s session in Dushanbe, a model law “On Drug Supply” was adopted, designed to guarantee the access to medications.

The experience of the cooperation among the CIS countries during the coronavirus pandemic deserves special attention, as it has demonstrated the effectiveness of joint healthcare systems. Russia was one of the first to the aid its CIS partners, providing them with Russian COVID-19 diagnostic test kits developed by the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology “Vector” of Rospotrebnadzor, as well as hundreds of tons of humanitarian aid, including lung ventilators, protective suits, medical masks, and antiseptics. Russian medical professionals worked in hospitals in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan.

In 2025, a joint international project to assess primary health care models in the CIS member states was launched. The implementation of the Strategy “Health of the Population of the CIS Member States” will continue.

2026, the Year of Healthcare in the CIS (in Russian), is marked by a large-scale program of approximately 100 interstate events. The strategic initiative of the year was the Belarusian program “The CIS – the Common Space of Health and Sustainable Development for 2026–2035”, aimed at strengthening the medical cooperation, including emergency care.