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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.

BIREME completes 53 years of uninterrupted activity as a Specialized Center of the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO). Its presence in the Region continues to be strengthened through the execution of its Biannual Work Plan 2020-2021 (PTB 20-21). Even in the current contingency due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the plan continues to be implemented by supporting local health authorities with administrative and technical cooperation actions.

Two years after its launch, the Virtual Health Library Traditional, Complementary, and Integrative Medicine of the Americas (VHL TCIM Americas) consolidates itself as an initiative that aims to articulate various social actors involved in the generation of policies, regulations, training, promotion, practice, use and research of these therapeutic systems and methods in the Americas Region. An editorial in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine describes the trajectory of the initiative and highlights its relevance and international reach.

The coordinators of Virtual Health Library (VHL) instances of Latin America and the Caribbean (LA&C) and BIREME discuss and define an Action Plan for the year 2020, with the main objective of strengthening the Network and meeting the countries’ needs.

A new cooperation agreement between the Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA) and the Latin American and Caribbean Center on Health Sciences Information (BIREME) has recently been established. Its main objective is to index IPEA’s health scientific output into the LILACS database, making it available for free on the internet, through the channels for the dissemination of health information, especially the Virtual Health Library.

Under the theme “It’s time for action. End TB”, a campaign for World Tuberculosis Day 2020 aims to urgently accelerate the response to the disease to save lives and reduce its impact worldwide. BIREME gathers relevant and updated information on tuberculosis, spotlighting the theme of the campaign, promoting direct access to reference documents from the Virtual Health Library such as plans, strategies and guidelines for combating and controlling the disease.

BIREME’s Scientific Committee now has seven new members for the 2020-2022 triennium. Together with the Advisory Committee, these two constitute the Governance Committees of BIREME in the context of its new institutional framework, in force since 2010, which perform advisory functions before the Director of the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO), with regard to the programmatic, managerial and technical cooperation functions of the Center.