VHL News Network

RENICS Argentina celebrates 20 years

RENICS, the network that assures the operation of the VHL in Argentina, celebrated its 20th anniversary on October 26-27, 2006, in Buenos Aires. The opening ceremony was attended by Mario A. Copello, Publishing Director of the National Medicine Academy; María de las Mercedes Di Stefano, RENICS Coordinator; and, from PAHO Argentina, José Antonio Pagés, Representative, Enrique Vázquez, Consultant, and Suzana Catalina Iannello, responsible for the Information and Documentation Center. BIREME/PAHO/WHO was represented by its Director, Abel L. Packer. Homage was paid to eight founders of RENICS, which resulted from an initiative by BIREME to decentralize the operation of the bibliographic control of scientific and technical health-related literature through LILACS
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3rd Coordination Meeting of VHL Brazil meets in Salvador

The 3rd Coordination Meeting of the VHL Brazil and the 11th Meeting of the Brazilian Network of Health Science Information took place in Salvador, Bahia, on October 22, 2006, before the XIV SNBU. There were over 130 participants. The opening panel was attended by Naomar M. de Almeida Filho, Rector of the Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA); Maria das Graças M. Ribeiro, Director of the UFBA Library System and President of the XIV SNBU; Eliane Pereira dos Santos, librarian, leader of the VHL Ministry of Health (CGDI/MS) and Abel Packer, Director of BIREME/PAHO/WHO attended the opening meetings session. The extensive program included, at the end, a session of feedback from each of the participants. They all reaffirmed their commitment towards the development of the VHL in Brazil
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XIV SNBU highlights access to scientific information for social inclusion

The XVI Seminário Nacional de Bibliotecas Universitárias (SNBU) promoted by the Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA) through its Library System, together with the Brazilian Council of University Libraries (CBBU), was held in Salvador, Bahia, on October 22-27, 2006. With the main theme Acesso livre à Informação Científica e Bibliotecas Universitárias [Free Access to Scientific Information and University Libraries], the event gathered over 900 participants including representatives of Brazilian academic institute libraries and other educational institutions. The VHL and SciELO Networks had an outstanding participation in the event program
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Launching of XV Cochrane Colloquium 2007

The XIV Cochrane Colloquium was held in Dublin, Ireland, on October 23-26, 2006, and it was promoted by the Health Research Board (HRB) and the Research and Development (R&D) Office, Northern Ireland Health and Social Services Central Services Agency. The event had 800 participants and focused on the expansion of use of evidence-based information to prepare healthcare policies and to promote its use by the general public. On the closing session, Álvaro Atallah, Director of the Brazil Cochrane Center, announced the XV Cochrane Colloquium which will take place in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on October 2007, with the support of the BIREME/PAHO/WHO
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Forum in Honduras assesses malaria control with no DDT

The II International Forum on Interculturality "Establishing innovative alternatives among indigenous peoples to control malaria with no use of DDT" was held in the city of Santa Fe, in Honduras, on October 25-26, 2006. The event was promoted by PAHO/WHO together with the Health Secretariat of Honduras, with the support from GEF and UNEP. The main objective was to analyze and to evaluate the methods to control malaria in Central America region with no chemical use. Marco Akerman, technical consultant of Sustainable Development and Environmental Health Area of PAHO, who works at BIREME/PAHO/WHO participated in the activities in the event context
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BIREME conducted training in LILACS for the Brazilian network

BIREME/PAHO/WHO conducted in Sao Paulo, on October 2-10, 2006, two courses on bibliographic control and indexing of scientific and technical literature in health, within the Virtual Health Library (VHL) context, and based on LILACS methodology and the web version of LILDBI application (LILDBI-Web). The training courses had participants representing 16 cooperating institutions of the VHL Network from several Brazilian states and most were librarians and informatics technicians. Luciano Duarte, Supervisor, coordinated the training with the support of the Referential Sources of Information (FIR) team
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