Author: Lilian Callo

BIREME entered into emergency teleworking due to the COVID-19 pandemic declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11th. Despite the challenging scenario, the Center continues to implement actions for the effective performance of its organizational structure of governance, management and operation, aiming at the implementation of its 2020-2021 Biannual Work Plan, within the framework of its technical cooperation for access and management of health information and knowledge.

The Virtual Health Library of the São Paulo Municipal Secretariat of Health (SMS São Paulo VHL), developed through a technical cooperation project with BIREME, since 2011 fulfills its mission to promote, expand, and strengthen technical, scientific and teaching areas, and contributes to the development of public health and the strengthening of the Unified Health System (SUS) in the city of São Paulo. As part of this cooperation, on April 27th, training in Access and use of scientific health information was offered to 40 medical residents.

PAHO/WHO, through the Department of Health Services (HSS), which integrates the Department of Evidence and Intelligence for Action in Health (EIH/PAHO), promoted a Webinar on May 19th, as part of the 2020 celebrations as the International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife, defined by the WHO.

In times of emergency, one of the main elements to consider is information, which is important for both the prevention and response stages. Currently, there exist various sources of information about COVID-19 related to health issues and other areas for decision makers, health professionals and the general public. A large number of sources correspond to Ministries of Health, research institutes and other national agencies. Many of these sources can also be found on the websites of countries’ central offices and PAHO and WHO centers.

On April 21^st, El Salvador formally joined the e-BlueInfo mobile application, becoming the fourth country in the Americas to do so, 16 months after its launch, alongside Peru, Guatemala and Brazil. The APP e-BlueInfo is an Information Platform for Health Practice that puts information in the palm of healthcare professionals developed by BIREME/PAHO/WHO.

The use of social networks has several objectives, including entertainment, communication between family, professional or social groups, and especially the search for information. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes the main role of the media, mainly due to the fact that international agencies similar to the WHO including PAHO, the United Nations, Ministries of Health, and scientific associations and societies, among others, have dedicated pages on their websites and social networks to COVID-19. In this sense, BIREME’s social networks aim to disseminate qualified content, from nationally and internationally accredited sources to all audiences.

The Reference Network (RefNet), coordinated by BIREME, aims to support managers, researchers, and health professionals in elaborating complex search strategies to support health policy and decision-making processes within the scope of Brazil’s Unified Health System (SUS). Recently, RefNet met to develop strategies to retrieve scientific and technical information about the new Coronavirus and COVID-19, to urgently respond to the demand for information on the topic.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to challenge the world and change everyday life as we know it, training, updating and supporting health professionals are of the utmost importance. In times like these, virtual tools can be very useful and make a big difference when we need to reach the largest number of professionals in the shortest possible time. In this sense, VCPH-PAHO offers several online courses on COVID-19 for health professionals.

World Health Day is celebrated every year on April 7, to commemorate the founding of the World Health Organization and to raise awareness of health-related issues. The theme of this year’s celebration is nursing professionals and all health teams, for their heroic dedication and sacrifice in the global fight to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

The analysis of access statistics, utilizing the Google Analytics service as a data source, to the information resources on COVID-19 available at the Virtual Health Library (VHL) show that BIREME is fulfilling its mission during the pandemic and help to demonstrate the response of its technical cooperation in the face of a global health emergency.