Minutes of the First Meeting of the Advisory Committee of the Virtual Health Library
in Food Safety, 31st of October 2007.

Introduction
The present document records the First Meeting of the Advisory Committee of the VHL in
Food Safety on 31/10/2007, using the web-conferencing System of PAHO, and
coordinated by the Food Safety Group from the Area of Health Surveillance and Diseases
Management. Present at the virtual meeting were members of the committee and invited
personnel from BIREME.

Participants
Members of the Advisory Committee

Jørgen Schlundt, Director. Department of Food Safety, Zoonosis and Foodborne
Diseases. Acting Director Department of Nutrition for Health and Development.
World Health Organization.

H. Scott Hurd D.V.M., Ph.D. Veterinary Diagnostic & Production Animal Medicine.
Director WHO Collaborating Center for Risk Assessment and Hazard Identification
in Foods of Animal Origin College of Veterinary Medicine, Iowa State University,
Ames, IA 50011.

Dean O. Cliver, Ph.D., Professor. Food Safety Laboratory and WHO Collaborating
Center for Food Virology, Department of Population Health and Reproduction
School of Veterinary Medicine University of California, Davis One Shields Avenue
Davis, CA 95616-8743.

Judy D. Greig, Food Safety Microbiologist/Epidemiologist Public Health Agency of
Canada Microbial Food Safety Risk Assessment Unit Laboratory for Foodborne
Zoonoses 160 Research Lane, Unit 206 Guelph, Ontario N1G 5B2.

Frederick J. Angulo, DVM PhD. Deputy Branch Chief, Enteric Diseases
Epidemiology Branch, Division of Foodborne, Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases,
National Center for Zoonoses, Vectorborne and Enteric Diseases, CDC, USA

Gisela Kooper, Lic. Tec. Alimentos, Msc. President of Alaccta (Asociacion
Latinoamericana de tecnólogos de Alimentos) Absent in the meeting.

Dr. Enrique Pérez Gutiérrez Food Safety Adivisor (Epidemiologist),– Food Safety
(FOS), Health Surveillance & Disease Management (HDM) - PAHO-WHO
Technical Secretariat:

Dr. Enrique Perez Gutierrez, Food Safety Group PAHO/WHO

Librarian Daisy Bersot, Manager of the VHL in Food Safety, PAHO/WHO

Librarian Trainee André Luiz dos Santos Silva, PAHO/WHO

Cesar Castro, Information Technologist , PAHO/WHO

Alberto Mendia, Manager, Information Technology Food Safety Group PAHO/WHO
BIREME:
Ernesto Spinack, Technical Cooperation Area, BIREME. PAHO/WHO
C. Agenda

Final comments and approval of terms of reference for the advisory committee of the
VHL-FOS

Suggestions on how to organize, and disseminate specialized information in food
safety;

Suggestions to exchange information in food safety;

Next web-conference and periodicity of meetings.
D. Meeting
1. Dr. Perez began the meeting thanking the participants for their time, and strengthened
the importance of the development of the VHL to support the decision-making processes
in food safety and knowledge management on the subject.
The agenda was reviewed and accepted with no additions. The meeting began with the
presentation of the terms of reference for the Advisory Committee. The following terms of
reference were approved by all participants:
Mission: The task of the virtual health library in food safety (VHL-FOS) is to contribute to
the access of safe and nutritious food in America and other WHO regional offices, through
the promotion of the use of technical and scientific information in food safety.
Objectives: The VHL-FOS has as a general purpose to seek and share resources and
cooperation of efforts; promoting an efficient and equitable access to the information in
food safety from farm to fork, regardless of the region or country.
Specific objectives:

Operate in harmony with the WHO Department of Food Safety, Zoonoses and
Foodborne Diseases;

To select, bring together, organize, and disseminate specialized information in the
area of food safety from farm to fork;

To keep updated the available databases in the VHL-FOS and others that can offer
relevant information to food safety community;

Promote the broad, fast and cooperative access to technical and scientific literature
published in hard copy or in electronic format to the food safety community;
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
Promote, through the VHL-FOS, the study, development, and dissemination of
technical and scientific information sources to meet the demands for information
from specific communities of users in the area;

Coordinate the development and updating of terminology related to food safety,
based on the harmonization of the descriptors in use in MESH with the vocabulary
DECS–Descriptors in Health Sciences of the BIREME;

To study, develop, maintain, and disseminate methodological instruments based on
advanced information technologies;
 Promote the exchange of publications.
Responsibilities
Advisory Committee:
1.
2.
3.
4.
To evaluate and to plan on the matters referring to the activities of the VHL-FOS;
Propose projects of specific interest to the Food Safety Community;
Coordinate cooperative work;
Define and guide the quality criteria for VHL-FOS information sources, defining
priorities, controlling and evaluating the performance of the VHL-FOS as a whole
and of each one of the information sources;
5. Organize the annual meeting of the advisory committee.
Technical Secretariat:
1. Implement the mandates of the Advisory Committee;
2. Coordinate cooperative activities;
3. Supervise the activities of the VHL-FOS;
4. Bring together the products and developed services in other regions;
5. Issue semiannual reports of the regional activities of the VHL-FOS.
Evaluation:
The activities of the VHL-FOS will be evaluated by the Advisory Committee, from the
reports presented and the observations and suggestions accrued from the users of the
VHL-FOS.
Validity of the Term:
This Commitment Term has validity without time limit, being able to be rescinded by
anyone of the members, through a written communication.
2. Dr. Ernesto Spinak talked about the model VHL/BIREME. He explained that the Virtual
Health Library is visualized on the basis of distribution of scientific and technical
knowledge in health registered, organized and stored in electronic format, accessible
universally by the Internet. The VHL is the model of PAHO for cooperation in scientific and
technical information that tries to strengthen and to expand the flow of this information in
Latin America and the Caribbean, the equitable access to the information, scenarios in that
the decisions in health are based on knowledge and to provide a context the sources of
information.
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3. Several members discussed about the importance of the VHL-FOS for other WHO
regions. It was suggested that if developed adequately the VHL-FOS could be the platform
of the WHO idea of creating the network of networks in food safety. The main objective of
the Network of Networks is to open communication channels between networks and
facilitate collaboration. VHL-FOS could be the web site that provides links to all other
networks.
4. There was discussion of how the VHL-FOS, could also support the INFOSAN network
of WHO. INFOSAN was created by WHO because of the need for all countries to promote
the exchange of food safety information and to improve collaboration among food safety
authorities at national and international levels. The aim of VHL-FOS is to promote na
efficient and equitable access to the information in food safety from farm to fork. Thus
VHL-FOS could be a good instrument for INFOSAN. It was emphasized that already a link
to INFOSAN webpage exists in the VHL-FOS.
5. The members expressed the need to specify the target population of VHL-FOS. It was
explained that even though the main target population is the scientific community working
in food safety, with particular emphasis on personnel working in diagnosis, epidemiology,
and food inspection, the VHL will have information for all stakeholders along the food
chain, including the food industry. The main goal is to improve the prevention of human
foodborne infections by promoting an efficient and equitable access to information in food
safety from farm to fork. This resource is intended to provide relevant, accurate and, above
all, timely information. The VHL-FOS concept is that a rapid exchange of information is
essential to ensure that effective informed decision making can be implemented, if
necessary, as rapidly as possible.
6. Several sections for the VHL-FOS were suggested by the members, including:
incidence of foodborne zoonosis, aquaculture, human illness related to food, food industry,
risk analysis, WHO-GSS. It was also suggested to create a cross matrix of terms and
etiological agents. Judy Greig suggested one that they used in Canada. Also, it was
mentioned that databases about foodborne outbreaks, and foodborne viral diseases were
available. Nevertheless, the mechanisms allowing the use of this information by the VHLFOS should be explored. This is an issue for the next web conference call.
7. Finally the frequency of the web conference was discussed. The members agreed that
at the beginning it was good to have meetings on a monthly basis to fine tune the
procedures for the operation of the VHL-FOS.
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