Access to medicines in the Brazilian Unified Health System’s primary health care: assessment of a public policy

In 2008, the Programa Rede Farmácia de Minas (RFM, literally translated: ‘Minas Gerais Pharmacy Network’ program) was created as a strategy to expand access to medicines. Aim: Measure access to medicines in public pharmacies through comparison between municipalities that joined or not the RFM. Materials & methods: Cross-sectional, evaluative study, gathering information from a representative sample of the municipalities in Minas Gerais between July 2014 and May 2015. The Poisson regression results were obtained by calculating the prevalence ratios. Results: Adequate access to medicines in Minas Gerais was 69.9%, being 75.8% in municipalities with and 69.2% without the RFM. The municipalities with the RFM showed statistically higher percentages in the Availability, Adequacy/Accommodation, and Acceptability dimensions. Conclusion: RFM appears an efficient strategy for promoting access to medicines.

Abandonment of health monitoring of babies of mothers with vertical transmission grievance

Objective: to analyze the abandonment of the health monitoring of babies of mothers with vertical transmission grievance. Methods: a retrospective documental study. The data came from children’s records stratified as high risk by the Paranaense Mother Network Program, due to being daughters of women diagnosed with syphilis, toxoplasmosis or Human Immunodeficiency Virus in the gestational period, attended in a reference center of maternal-infant care. For the analysis of factors associated with abandonment of treatment, univariate analysis and Fisher’s Exact Test with sociodemographic variables were performed. All ethical precepts were observed. Results: a total of 136 medical records were analyzed. The cases with the highest abandonment rate were the children of women with toxoplasmosis and gestational syphilis, presenting rates of 48.4% and 45.7%, respectively. Conclusion: the abandonment of baby health monitoring is recurrent. The reasons for frequent abandonment were: lack of active search, lack of transportation and unforeseen family events.

School Libraries to Read the World

The main purpose of this paper is to present the intervention of the School Libraries Network Program in establishing projects and enlarged partnerships that leverage and consolidate the role of libraries in communities and open the students' access to knowledge and learning beyond the school boundaries. In this context a few examples are given and we describe some of the cooperative projects developed by the Program with different partners, public and private, in areas related to students’ education and the construction of citizenship: reading, information, media, science, digital technologies, health, inclusion, heritage and others. These projects and partnerships are an important factor of strengthening, projection and sustainability of school libraries in the context of today's society and its new challenges. O principal objetivo desta comunicação é apresentar o trabalho do Programa Rede de Bibliotecas Escolares (PRBE) no estabelecimento de projetos e parcerias alargadas que potenciam e consolidam o papel das bibliotecas na comunidade e ampliam as aprendizagens e o acesso dos alunos ao conhecimento para lá dos limites da escola. Neste contexto, são dados exemplos e descritos alguns dos projetos de cooperação desenvolvidos pelo Programa com diferentes parceiros, públicos e privados, relacionados com a educação dos alunos e a construção da cidadania nas áreas da leitura, informação, media, ciência, tecnologias digitais, saúde, inclusão, património e outras. Estes projetos e parcerias são um importante fator de fortalecimento, projeção e sustentabilidade das bibliotecas escolares no quadro da sociedade atual e dos seus novos desafios.

Strategic Framework for Portuguese School Libraries: 2014-2020

The main purpose of this paper is to present the School Libraries Network Program of the Ministry of Education and its strategy concerning the creation and the implementation of a National Strategic Framework for School Libraries: 2014-2020. According to “Europe Strategic 2020”, the School Libraries Network Program (SLNP) conceived an action plan to align with and contribute to the European goals for education. To respond to the current challenges, due to the digital revolution and the way we deal with information and acquire knowledge, the educational systems need, more than ever of strong school libraries, able to teach and support students achieving a good educational attainment and the skills essential to the future. With this professional paper we propose to underline the need of new managing tools and a new strategic thinking and discuss how this standards framework cancontribute to the progress of the school libraries in a rapidly changing world, a world much more demanding and much more focused on results, that have an impact on students’ achievement and make a difference in their lives.

New records of Jaguar (Panthera onca) in the department of Cesar, Colombia

We present new records of Jaguar (Panthera onca) from the department of Cesar, in the Caribbean region of Colombia. In addition, we report some incidents of deaths due to illegal hunting and vehicle collision in two important conservation zones: the Serranía del Perijá and Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. These records are the result of biodiversity assessments and conservation projects of the wildlife Network Program of CORPOCESAR and constitute an effort to document the distribution and the conflict between humans and jaguars for the northernmost populations of the country.