Within the framework of the analysis of its 2020-2021 Work Plan (BWP 20-21) and even though in emergency teleworking during the global pandemic of COVID-19 since mid-March/20, BIREME/PAHO/WHO achieved important advances. Ten of the main results achieved in the first semester of 2020 are shared here, especially scientific information on SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19.
The 58th Directing Council of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) took place virtually in 2020, where Health Ministers and high-country officials discussed the region’s response to the COVID -19 pandemic, as well as other challenges. The Latin American and Caribbean Center for Health Sciences Information (BIREME), PAHO / WHO Regional Scientific Information Center, was on the agenda with the replacement of two member countries of its Advisory Committee.
TA6/TC95 is oriented towards Improving the Management of the Executive Secretariat of the Ministry of Health of Brazil, and relies on the participation of the Technical Areas of PAHO/ WHO Brazil and of BIREME/PAHO/WHO, which cooperates specifically with results related to the management of scientific and technical health information and communication. Meetings are periodically held to communicate results obtained in the subprojects that make up the Term of Cooperation in force and to align expectations of new developments, such as the one that took place on October 2nd, which was attended by the Deputy Secretary for Administrative Affairs of the Ministry of Health.
BIREME launched the new Health Science Descriptors (DeCS in its Portuguese acronym) website on September 18, during a web conference attended by 390 people from 28 countries in the Americas and Europe regions. For 34 years, DeCS has played a fundamental role in the management and access to information and knowledge in Health Sciences. Produced by BIREME/PAHO/WHO, it is a controlled vocabulary organized hierarchically and derived from the thesaurus Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) , produced by the National Library of Medicine (NLM).
The series of six webinars coordinated by PAHO / WHO through PAHO Brazil, Ministry of Health and BIREME aims at strengthening health information networks, articulate and promote cooperation and participation of the VHL and BiblioSUS Networks. The last two webinars dealt with scholarly communication topics in the context of the VHL information sources: “Scientific information on COVID-19: the role of preprints” and “Ethics in scientific publishing”.
On September 22, a Window of Knowledge was launched in the context of the VHL Nursing work. In a virtual session for Latin America and the Caribbean, the Window of Knowledge Nursing Workforce in Latin America and the Caribbean was launched, which took place within the framework of Florence Nightingale’s bicentenary and the celebration of the International Year of Nursing, which aims at highlighting and systematizing the scientific output on the nursing workforce in the Region.