Representatives of the Virtual Health Library (VHL) from the Caribbean countries present at the Conferencia Anual de la Asociación de Bibliotecas Universitarias, de Investigación e Institucionales del Caribe (ACURIL 2017) gathered in order to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Center and the role played by BIREME in the dissemination of health information through the VHL.
DeCS is a controlled and structured vocabulary in health in English, Portuguese and Spanish. BIREME is responsible for the translation into Portuguese and the review of the Spanish translation, together with the Facultad de Medicina de la Universidad de Chile (for Latin American and Caribbean Spanish) and with the Biblioteca Nacional de Ciencias de la Salud del Instituto de Salud Carlos III (for European Spanish). It also makes hierarchical modifications of MeSH and organizes its terms. Since 2016, BIREME has enabled searches in the VHL with MeSH terms in French due to its translation by the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (Inserm).
In order to train the Network of Reference Professionals of the Virtual Health Library and other specialists on building search strategies, BIREME and Instituto Nacional do Câncer (INCA) organized the 1st Advanced Workshop Search Strategies on Health Information. The workshop was held on the framework of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of BIREME and the 80th anniversary of INCA. The initiative is one of the cooperation projects established with the Brazilian Ministry of Health.
The development of projects, products and services for access of health information characterizes the institutional relations with Fiocruz and ANVISA, among other historic supporters of BIREME/PAHO/WHO. Regarding Fiocruz, the main institutional and thematic fora are the VHL, together with REBEC, ProQualis and SciELO Livros. With ANVISA, the list includes the Portal do Conhecimento, Comunidade Virtual em Vigilância Sanitária, Legislação em Vigilância Sanitária and the Sistema de Gerenciamento Eletrônico de Bulas, among others.
The LILACS Network includes 27 Latin American and Caribbean (LA&C) countries, 937 journals and more than 770 thousand documents. In order to extend and strengthen the bibliographic control of the literature produced in LA&C, BIREME organized virtual meetings on coordination and indexing to the LILACS database Cooperation Network.
The Rede de Alimentação e Nutrição do Sistema Único de Saúde (RedeNutri), established in 2009, is a virtual place that allows users to reflect upon and evaluate the results of the implementation of the Política Nacional de Alimentação e Nutrição [National Food and Nutrition Policy] (PNAN) of the Brazilian Ministry of Health. The Online Collaborative Space establishes itself as a community of good practices in eating and nutrition habits at the Unified Health System in Brazil (SUS), gathering professionals from several areas, researchers and other stakeholders.