BIREME Bulletin n° 41

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.

At the initiative and leadership of the Ministry of Health of El Salvador, through its National Institute of Health, in collaboration with PAHO/WHO in the country and with BIREME, between January 27^th and 31^st, an intense week of activities, meetings and workshops with representatives of academic, governmental and scientific associations was held, with the main objective of reorganizing the National Documentary Health Information Network (RENIDS) and reactivating the Virtual Health Library in the country.

The technical cooperation of the Latin American and Caribbean Center on Health Sciences Information of the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (BIREME/PAHO/WHO) is characterized by its regional operation on behalf of equitable access to information, knowledge and scientific health evidence from countries in the Region. In the 2018-2019 biennium, BIREME/PAHO/WHO cooperated with more than ten Cooperation Agreements (TC) established between PAHO/WHO Brazil and the Ministry of Health.

In 2019, BIREME offered a series of webinars to the LILACS Network on Best Practices in the Editorial Processes for Scientific Journals for the LILACS Network. The objective was to revisit the fundamental steps in the editorial processes for scientific journals, to describe the best practices and provide a space for discussion and questions about the topics addressed with the editorial teams of the journals indexed in LILACS. An online survey of webinars revealed a high level of respondent satisfaction. The 2020 program is now available and registration is open.

BIREME has concentrated efforts to make the contents of its websites accessible to a greater number of people with disabilities, such as blindness or low vision, movement limitations and photosensitivity. This effort means following the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), recommended by the W3C, the Consortium that develops and maintains the Web’s operating standards.

World Cancer day, celebrated on February 4th, whose motto this year is “I am and I will”, aims to raise awareness among all people directly or indirectly involved with the disease worldwide and also to contribute to actions for prevention, reducing risk factors, increasing access to early diagnosis and adequate treatment. BIREME contributes to facilitate access to relevant and quality information on cancer, for the improvement of professionals, researchers, and those interested in the theme through the Virtual Health Library for Cancer Prevention and Control.