The Latin American and Caribbean Center for Health Sciences Information (BIREME) of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) is collaborating with academic and government authorities in Brazil for the development of Virtual Health Libraries.
PAHO is continuously collaborating on technical cooperation programs and projects that favor and promote the dissemination and access to information, the exchange of experiences, and transparency, terms aligned with the Strategic Plan 2020-2025 and the Sustainable Development Goals ( SDG).
BIREME is an important part of these strategies carried out by PAHO in Latin American countries, since it promotes actions that seek, among other things, equitable access to information, to develop and improve products and services that facilitate the publication of information and technical evidence. and health scientist.
In Brazil, for example, they have worked with state and municipal health ministries, universities, to develop libraries with the PAHO Virtual Health Library (VHL) scheme, with the aim of promoting access to information. The Brazilian Ministry of Health has been a key collaborator of PAHO in carrying out these actions, as it is also a permanent member of the BIREME Governance Committee.
In total, BIREME, PAHO/WHO Brazil and the Ministry of Health have cooperated and worked with more than 2,000 institutions for the operation and maintenance of libraries that work under the VHL model.
In this way, thanks to constant cooperation, they have developed projects such as the strengthening of the Network of Libraries of the Unified Health System (SUS); the maintenance and updating of the VHL of the Ministry of Health of São Paulo; the development of lines of action for the technical visibility of the SUS, among others.
