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Studies on the differential effects of health emergencies have largely overlooked women health workers. Whilst the literature has shown the impact of Coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) on women and on healthcare workers, little research has considered the gendered effects of the health workforce. This article analyses the impact of COVID-19 on healthcare workers and working conditions in Brazil's public healthcare system, through consideration of gendered and racialized understandings of care and work. Data were taken from an online survey of 1,263 health workers, undertaken between September and October 2020, disaggregated by sex and by race in order to understand health workers' experiences of the pandemic in one of the countries most significantly affected by the crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brazil's Zika virus crisis (2015–17), following hot on the heels of the Ebola outbreak (2014–15), dominated newsfeeds and high-level discussions amid governments, the UN system and beyond, with emerging fears relating to Congenital Zika Syndrome (CZS), embodied by microcephaly. However, beyond the ensuing panic in Latin America facing a generation of Zika babies, the outbreak demonstrates key developments in our understanding of the interaction between health and security, based on the Copenhagen School's securitization approach. It suggests that unlike previous diseases that were securitized, it was not the virus that was the cause of the security threat, nor how many people were affected, but a combined concern over where (in Brazil at a time of domestic political crisis), when (immediately post-Ebola), who (foetuses and babies), how (unknown disease characteristics) and what was the existential threat (the vectorized unknown). This article shows these developments for global health security through empirical analysis of the multiple securitization processes that occurred within Brazil for the Zika virus, at the subnational and federal levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]