BIREME Bulletin n° 72

Ministers of Health and other high-level representatives from countries and territories of the Americas gathered September 26-30 in Washington, D.C., United States for the 30^th Pan American Sanitary Conference of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) which was attended by the Director of PAHO, Dr. Carissa F. Etienne and the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. During the event, the new PAHO Director, Dr. Jarbas Barbosa da Silva Jr., whose term begins on February 1, 2023.

The Scientific Committee of BIREME/PAHO/WHO met virtually at the VIII Session on September 8, 2022, with the aim of sharing the current implementation status of the recommendations of the previous session and of promoting an effective exchange to obtain recommendations in favor of visibility and quality of BIREME products and services for the Latin America and the Caribbean countries.

The VHL, a model for information management developed and coordinated regionally by BIREME/PAHO/WHO with the support of Latin American and Caribbean countries, is recognized as a good practice in the 4^th volume of the publication “Good Practices in South-South and Triangular Cooperation for Sustainable Development” of the United Nations Office for South-South and Triangular Cooperation – UNOSSC.

The WHO – COVID-19 Research Database, which is supported by BIREME/PAHO/WHO, plays a key role in facilitating and democratizing the access and use of international scientific literature on COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2. Currently, activities are under way to improve and expand the sources of information in this important database. In addition, it is intended to provide greater robustness and flexibility to Information Architecture and data-based intelligence, in addition to intensifying the use of tools to promote knowledge, through Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

Teams from BIREME and the General Coordination of Evidence of the Department of Science and Technology (COEVI/DECIT) of the Ministry of Health of Brazil evaluate the results of technical cooperation aimed at increasing the production, access, and use of scientific evidence in decision- and policy-making processes in the context of the SUS, in line with the Evidence-Informed Policy Network (EVIPNet) initiative in Brazil.

On August 23, the Digital Innovations Webinar was held to facilitate the use of evidence and two new databases were launched: BIGG-REC and Therapeutics Covid-19. The initiative was promoted by the EIH Department of PAHO/WHO and BIREME through the motivation to present and disseminate new resources to facilitate the use of evidence by health decision makers.