Author: Lilian Callo

World Kidney Day 2022 was celebrated on March 10^th under the theme “Kidney Health for All”. The campaign encourages research on chronic kidney disease, as the continuous and persistent lack of knowledge about this disease is demonstrable at all levels of health care. In order to make an increasing number of people aware of the disease, PAHO/WHO publishes a guide for the implementation of HEARTS in the Americas. HEARTS was recently recognized with the World Heart Awards by the World Heart Federation in the “Promotion of Cardiovascular Health” category.

In March 2022, the year in which the Pan American Health Organization celebrates 120 years of its foundation, BIREME completes 55 years as a specialized center of PAHO/WHO, whose mission is to democratize access and publication of information, knowledge, and evidence for the continuous improvement of research, education, and health systems in LA&C countries. The celebration of 55 years of BIREME and 120 years of PAHO/WHO are both focused on stimulating efforts in favor of pro-equity strategies for access and universal health coverage. PAHO/WHO, through the fight against diseases and promotion of physical and mental health, leaving no one behind, and BIREME, promoting the democratization of access to information and evidence to guide the decision-making process in health.

The new web page of the Scholarly Communication in Health VHL has just been updated to follow the relevant changes that have occurred in recent years in this area. The new portal was designed to contemplate scientific journal editors, journal editorial teams, authors, peer reviewers, librarians, information science professionals and students, and all those who seek to know more about the specialized process of writing and publishing scientific research outcomes in health sciences.

BIREME collaborates with the development of the Regional Database of Health Technology Assessment Reports of the Americas (BRISA), coordinated by the MT/HSS unit of PAHO/WHO. The reports included in the BRISA database are produced by national institutions, members of the Health Technology Assessment Network of the Americas (Red de Evaluación de Tecnologías en Salud de las Américas, RedETSA). To better serve the Network’s user community, the RedETSA portal was renovated, added to new functionalities, and integrated with the BRISA database.

The technical cooperation project between PAHO/WHO, through BIREME, and the Ministry of Health of Brazil, through the General Coordination of Food and Nutrition, aims to contribute to increasing the visibility, access to, and use of scientific and technical information related to the Decade of Action on Nutrition. In February 2022, three new products were launched resulting from this cooperation: the Evidence Map on the management and treatment of Malnutrition in the context of Primary Health Care, the Widow of Knowledge Food and Nutrition in Public Health, and an infometric study of international scientific production.

Laxmi Mansingh, Head of the Library of Medicine at the University of the West Indies in Mona, Jamaica passed away on February 19, which we are deeply sorry for. The database she created by compiling and publishing the Caribbean medical health literature, with more than 10,000 documents, was the gateway used by BIREME to initiate technical cooperation actions with the English Caribbean countries from 1989, year of creation of MedCarib. This network initiated an action plan, currently underway, for the development of a Regional VHL for the English Caribbean.

PAHO/WHO joins the World Cancer Day 2022 campaign, celebrated on February 4 and whose theme is “Close the care gap”. BIREME, in its mission to provide access to scientific and technical health information, makes information about cancer available in the Virtual Health Library Cancer Prevention and Control and in the Windows of Knowledge “National No Smoking Day: Tobacco and Coronavirus” and “Pink October: early detection of breast cancer”.

The 3^rd Adjustment Term to the Cooperation Term 93 (TA3/TC93) between the Ministry of Health of Brazil and the Pan American Health Organization had its validity extended for another five years, for the implementation of actions linked to the “Development and improvement of BIREME, in the context of information and knowledge management in the 2030 Agenda and Universal Health”. This result reinforces the commitment of the Government of Brazil, through the Ministry of Health, to the development, institutional strengthening, and technical cooperation program of BIREME/PAHO/WHO, which will complete 55 years of operation in March 2022.

With the objective of strengthening the democratization of access to health information and in line with open science practices, BIREME/PAHO/WHO makes available the Open Metadata Portal of VHL Information Sources. In its beta version, the Open Metadata Portal provides information so that the metadata can be reused and may be exported in various formats.

BIREME’s technical cooperation is characterized by its regional action in favor of equitable access to information and development of products and services that seek to improve the quality of production, access and publication of information and scientific and technical evidence in health for all countries in the Region. With the Ministry of Health as the main counterpart in Brazil, in the 2020-2021 biennium, BIREME cooperated with more than ten Cooperation Terms (TC in the Portuguese acronym) established between PAHO Brazil and the MS. Find out more about the projects developed under these TCs.