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World Health Day, celebrated each year on April 7, marks the founding anniversary of the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1948 and each year focuses on a specific public health concern. In addition to focusing on ways to achieve Health for All, which is this year’s theme, WHO celebrated its 75th anniversary under the theme “75 years improving Public Health”. Join the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the WHO on this journey to achieve Health for All. 

Under the call to action “Get Up-to-Date #EachVaccineCounts,” the 2023 Vaccination Week in the Americas promoted revitalization of national immunization programs and regional goals for disease control and elimination, fostering confidence in vaccines at all ages, and reinforcements to maintain polio elimination in the Region.

On March 3, 2023, the Latin American and Caribbean Center on Health Sciences Information (BIREME/PAHO/WHO) completes 56 years of uninterrupted activity and highlights its main results in the last 12 months. By proposing a debate that will lead to the development of a 2023-2025 Cooperation Strategy, BIREME strengthens and repositions itself as a Center of Evidence for Action in Health.

Twenty-five years ago, in 1998, the Latin American and Caribbean Health Information Network approved the Declaration of San José “Towards the Virtual Health Library”. Since then, BIREME has been leading the development of the VHL model as a PAHO/WHO technical cooperation strategy in health information and knowledge management for Latin America and the Caribbean and other regions.

The most recent edition of the Health Sciences Descriptors (DeCS) has just been made available for online consultation at the DeCS/MeSH portal. Its update has been done annually, as for more than 35 years, and reflects the annual update of the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) of the National Library of Medicine and involves processes of inserting new descriptors and removing or repositioning others. Discover the novelties of the 2023 edition of DeCS.

PAHO/WHO, through its Country Offices and Centers, including BIREME, works in the countries of the Region through technical cooperation programs and projects. The terms of cooperation (TC) are among the instruments most used by the Organization to consolidate this practice. BIREME/PAHO/WHO continues to develop and improve products and services to facilitate access and use of scientific and technical evidence in health in LA&C countries.

BIREME’s information technology infrastructure uses and makes available to its personnel equipment that periodically must be replaced. In this sense and in line with the PAHO/WHO donation process, in October 2022 the call for non-profit institutions interested in receiving such equipment was initiated and in April of the current year the donation was completed.

World Kidney Day is a global awareness campaign aimed at raising awareness of the importance of our kidneys. On March 9, 2023, the World Kidney Day call to action is “Kidney Health for All: Prepare for the Unexpected, Support the Vulnerable”.

The purpose of the XI Session of the BIREME/PAHO/WHO Advisory Committee, held virtually on February 8, 2023, was to report to the Committee members on the progress of the management and technical cooperation program of the Center. The meeting was attended by appointed members from Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, and Guatemala, in addition to PAHO/WHO, which is also one of the Committee’s permanent members. Learn about the main recommendations agreed upon at the meeting.

In February 2023, Carla Saenz (PAHO/WHO Regional Advisor on Bioethics) visited BIREME and met with the Director of the Center, João Paulo Souza, to discuss collaboration opportunities in three main topics: (1) Development of a research project on “How to communicate the notion of risk to the lay population?”; (2) Mapping health knowledge gaps project; and (3) Health implementation research. These themes are part of a new BIREME Cooperation Strategy 2023-2025, under development, considering the successful mutual cooperation in the context of the ProEthos platform (HSS/PAHO/WHO).