Search Results for: COVID-19

The 58^th 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.

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.

On August 28, BIREME held an online Ad Hoc Session to welcome the new members of its Scientific Committee, which together with the Advisory Committee, make up the Center’s Governance Committees, as established in the Statute of its institutional framework. The specific objectives of the session were to welcome the new members of the Committee; report on the current state of implementation of the main recommendations of previous members; strengthen BIREME’s institutional framework with countries in the region; obtain recommendations for the visibility of your products and services; and support your financial sustainability.

BIREME/PAHO/WHO coordinated the 1^st Meeting of the e-BlueInfo Regional Steering Committee on August 26, 2020, which was attended by representatives of Brazil, El Salvador, Guatemala and Peru, as members of the Committee, and from Argentina, Colombia and Paraguay, invited observers for being in the process of adopting e-BlueInfo in their countries.

The most recent version of the Health Sciences Descriptors/Medical Subject Headings (DeCS/MeSH) was made available for consultation in June this year. The main novelties are the revision of the hierarchical branch of MeSH concepts related to infections (now better combined in subcategory C01 of category C of Diseases) and the beginning of the review of the hierarchical structure of the exclusive categories of DeCS.

Another successful event in the series of webinars to strengthen the Health Information Networks – BiblioSUS and VHL Brazil -, took place on August 27 and was attended by 90 participants. There were three presentations that highlighted different points of view and experiences on the theme: “The Network’s role as a disseminator and intermediary of health scientific knowledge“.

In order to maintain effective communication with the members of the Advisory Committee (AC) and share partial information on the progress made on the recommendations from its members at the VIII Session held in October 2019, BIREME organized an Ad Hoc online Session of the AC on July 30, 2020. On the occasion, the implementation situation of the recommendations from the VIII Session and the challenges in the development of the 2020-2021 Biannual Work Plan during the COVID-19 global pandemic was presented, as well as obtaining recommendations to overcome them.

With the theme “The importance of working within networks in the health area”, on June 4^th took place the first of a series of six webinars for the Networks that make up the Brazil VHL Network. The initiative is part of the cooperation established between BIREME and the Ministry of Health, through CGDI/SAA/SE/MS, and aims to strengthen the Brazil VHL Network and, particularly, the BiblioSUS Network.

The PAHO/WHO Department of Evidence and Intelligence for Action in Health (EIH) uses information and knowledge generated in LA&C and globally to build innovative products and services that aim at supporting evidence-based policies and sound decisions on public health at regional and global level. The series of webinars called ‘EIH Space’ recently brought up the theme ‘Role of EIH in global knowledge management’, which focused on the Global Index Medicus, a WHO initiative supported by BIREME that brings together in a single platform the world literature in biomedicine and public health produced by low- and middle-income countries. Its main objective is to increase the visibility and use of this important set of resources.