Twenty-two years ago, on the 4th Regional Congress on Health Sciences Information (CRICS4) held in San José, Costa Rica, and through the San José Declaration “Hacia la Biblioteca Virtual en Salud”, a model of health information and knowledge management was born.
The Virtual Health Library (VHL), coordinated by BIREME, structures and guides the development of products, services and initiatives based on cooperative, decentralized and networked work.
The VHL, on its 22nd anniversary, continues to be strengthened by the collective effort of its Network of Cooperating Centers, reiterating its mission of:
- Create, strengthen and develop national capacities and infrastructures for scientific and technical information, with the objective of providing equitable access to updated scientific evidence and knowledge.
- Support decision-making processes in the health area by subsidizing them with quality information sources.
- Strengthen knowledge and information management through technical cooperation with and between Latin American and Caribbean countries.
Faced with the current challenge of the Covid-19 pandemic, the VHL reaffirms its importance by relying on the institutions that make up its Network, and that share the responsibility for the production and operation of the content network, to provide selected and updated information sources about the disease.
We are at a time when the unity of all can make a difference in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic and we at the VHL Network are proud of our contribution.
