Alexandre Pozza Urnau Silva, Sub Secretary of Administrative Issues of the Brazil’s Ministry of Health (Subsecretário de Assuntos Administrativos do Ministério da Saúde – SAA), Soraya Zacarias Drumond de Andrade, Coordinator of the General Coordination of Documentation and Information (Coordenação Geral de Documentação e Informação, CGDI), and Shirlei Rodrigues Gonçalves, Coordinator of Technical and Scientific Health Information Dissemination, met at BIREME premises on April 25th, in order to discuss topics on the Center’s management, institutionality and technical cooperation. Dr. Diego González Machín, Director of BIREME, and his team, Jacobo Finkelman, interim Director of the Department of Evidence and Intelligence in Health (EIH) of PAHO/WHO Headquarters, and Janine Coutinho, Knowledge Management Consultant for PAHO/WHO Brazil, also participated at the meeting.
BIREME maintains a historical relation with the Ministry of Health of Brazil (MH), since the founding of the Center 52 years ago. The institutional relation with the MH is operated through Agreements and Cooperation Terms (CT) that include PAHO/WHO Brazil. Currently, CT93 and CT95 are oriented respectively to the strengthening and improvement and to the implementation of its technical cooperation program as a PAHO/WHO Specialized Center on scientific and technical health information.
The visiting party was received by Diego González Machín, and together they visited BIREME premises, which included a presentation of the Historical Legacy Mural and a welcome on behalf of the administrative and technical management teams, with brief presentations of their members.
Next, gathered in the Director’s office, the visitors attended presentations on the Center’s mission, priorities and strategic actions (BIREME Today, by Diego González Machín); management, institutionality and work plan (by Silvia de Valentin, Administration and Planning Manager); information products and services (by Carmen Verônica Abdala, Cooperative Services and Production of Information Sources Manager); information technology for technical cooperation (by Renato Murasaki, Administration of Sources and Methodologies and Information Technology Manager); and advances in scientific communication (by Lilian Calò, Scientific and Institutional Communication Coordinator).
The Sub Secretary and his team reiterated their interest and support for the improvement of BIREME and of its technical cooperation program, considering its projects, products and services in scientific and technical information. Networking with Latin American and Caribbean institutions, including Brazil, which allows to operate and manage BIREME’s different products and services, as well as technological advances, projects developed in the country and the Region and scientific communication training programs were a few topics that aroused widespread interest.
At the end of the visit, it was unanimously agreed upon that the institutional relation between BIREME/PAHO/WHO and the MH, through the CGDI/SAA, and considering its global, regional and local impact, is strengthened by the joint developments in favor of access to information from scientific evidence in Brazil and other countries of the Region, for the benefit of the different actors of the health field, and, consequently, for the health of the people in the Region.
