ICML 9

9º World Congress on Health Information and Libraries

Salvador, Bahia - Brazil, September, 20 to 23 - 2005

BVS4

4th Regional Coordination Meeting of the VHL

September, 19 to 20 - 2005

P93 - Information on public health: uses, abuses and necessities

Brazil is internationally recognized for succeeding in many experiences. Among those comes, outstandingly, the National Program on Sexual Transmitted Diseases and AIDS (Programa Nacional de DST/AIDS) which has been elected by United Nations (UN) as “the best anti-aids health program under development on a worldwide basis”. This Program which is coordinated by the Ministry of Health and founded in 1983, right after the outbreak of the first cases of AIDS in the country, achieved results, not at random but, there was and there is an articulated response for the epidemic control between Government and Society on treatment, prevention and human rights guarantees. The strategy assumed by the Ministry of Health proposes several actions in order to guarantee the epidemic control that goes from paradigm shift (such as myths and taboos) up to challenges like technologic development to produce vaccines and medicines. Information and knowledge are the main keys to this context and its systematization and dissemination are the pillar strategies of the Program.