Five years after the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic, this special edition looks back at BIREME/PAHO/WHO’s main actions in response to the health crisis. The article highlights the rapid development of scientific information resources, dealing with the infodemic, the work of the technical teams and stories that humanize the backstage of the institutional response. A retrospective of impact, innovation and commitment to public health in the region.
Obesity affects more than 1 billion people worldwide and is linked to cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and certain cancers. Although complex, it is a preventable condition with effective policies, healthy environments and actions from the earliest years of life. On World Obesity Day, BIREME/PAHO/WHO reinforces the urgency of integrated responses and highlights the Window of Knowledge as a tool to support decisions based on scientific and technical information.
BIREME and CGDI/MS are continuing with developments in the context of TC95 for the management of health information and knowledge to support the management of the Executive Secretariat of the Ministry of Health. TA13 was formalized for 2025-2026 and both TA6 and TA9 were finalized with recognized outcomes such as the VHL of the Ministry of Health and DeCS and LILACS information sources, among others.
BIREME is incorporating Artificial Intelligence into its products and services to optimize the indexing, information retrieval, and synthesis of scientific papers. DeCS Finder AI and the new Abstract Synthesis are examples of advances that modernize access to health knowledge.
BIREME and SEIDIGI of the Brazilian Ministry of Health held workshops to support the digital transformation of SUS through projects such as the Second Formative Opinion, Decision Aids and the SUS Digital Portal to expand access to scientific and technical health information for the population and service workers. These actions are within the context of TC157 with PAHO Brazil.
The criteria for admission and permanence of LILACS journals have been updated to reflect advances in Open Science and strengthen editorial quality. The new version of the document, the result of a participatory process with experts from Latin America and the Caribbean, establishes guidelines on indexing, diversity, editorial ethics, the use of artificial intelligence and avoiding predatory journals. The new rules come into force in April 2025, with a transition period until 2026.
Every year, an estimated 30,000 children and adolescents in Latin America and the Caribbean are diagnosed with cancer, and almost 10,000 lose their lives to the disease. Visit the 2025 campaign page “Early diagnosis of childhood cancer – PAHO/WHO”. You can also access the VHL collection on the subject, which has more than 42,000 technical and scientific publications and the LILACS Plus collection, with more than 3,000 documents.
The leadership and technical and project teams meet periodically to share prioritized developments. This week, therefore, the meeting to present the new dynamics of organizing the portfolios of Product Owners (POs) and the project management support meeting took place, which are essential for achieving results in the context of formal technical Cooperation Agreements and Terms, and especially the alignment with organizational objectives and the implementation of the agile culture at BIREME.
To recognize the results achieved in 2024, BIREME held an activity to develop its staff, focusing on building successful teams, psychological safety, and effective communication practices. The event included interactive activities and role-playing, combined with educational and reflective content, involving all staff.
The first functional version of TMGL was delivered in November, representing a milestone in the global management of information on traditional medicine. Under BIREME’s coordination, and in just three months of production, more than 1.7 million records and innovative resources have been consolidated on the online platform. The next phase aims to launch an advanced preliminary version of the library, scheduled for April 2025, with expanded access for the general public.