Fiocruz International News – February 2019

International Day of Women and Girls in Science is celebrated at Fiocruz

Women are only 30% of the world's scientists. Aiming to revert this reality, the UN established February 11 as the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. The day was celebrated for the first time in the Foundation with a panel in which female scientist talked about their careers and the challenges they have overcome.

Have Vale and the government learned nothing from Fundão?

Fiocruz Minas researcher and Special Rappourter of United Nations for on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation Leo Heller writes about the unlearned mistakes that led to a new dam collapse in Minas Gerais: “Dams do not break by a divine design. Collapses are caused by physical, mechanical factors”.

Fiocruz enters into partnership to conduct research in Antarctica
The project will study pathogens, virus, bacterias, fungi and helminths in the continent. The impacts of Antarctica's rich and varied ecosystems on the health of animals and visitors on the very continent and on South America are still little studied.
President of Fiocruz meets with PAHO representative
Socorro Gross is the new representative of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO / WHO) in Brazil. Production of vaccines, surveillance programs and innovation and technology cooperation were among the topics discussed.
Consul General of Canada visits Fiocruz
The Consul met Fiocruz representatives to discuss health research collaboration between Canada and Brasil. Among the topics: indigenous health, primary care, healthy cities and antimicrobial resistance.
Exercise-induced hormone can lessen the damages of Alzheimer's disease
Mouse studies showed that irisin, released by muscles during exercise, improves neuron communication, preserving synapses. The hormone also prevents toxins that cause neurodegenerative changes, leading to disease onset, from binding to neurons.
Fiocruz wins 2018 SDG Brazil Award
The Technological Platform for Participative Monitoring in Zoonosis Emergence, coordinated by the researcher Márcia Chame, was one of the winning initiatives in the Teaching, Research, and Extension category.
Research evaluates simultaneous transmission of arboviroses
In the study, 948 patients attended by febrile diseases in an emergency health unit in Salvador were systemically investigated by laboratorial tests to verify if the disease cause could be attributed to the dengue fever, chikungunya, or zika fever viruses.
WMP's Wolbachia method limits transmission of yellow fever
A new study confirms the World Mosquito Program’s (WMP) Wolbachia method limits transmission of the yellow fever virus in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, reducing the threat of urban outbreaks of the disease.
Meeting discusses Fiocruz international cooperation
The director of the Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC), Ambassador Ruy Pereira, visited Fiocruz to discuss the next steps of the partnership between the two institutions, which was consolidated in a Protocol of Intent signed in November.
Foreign midwives visit IFF/Fiocruz
A group of midwives from United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand was interessed to learn more about the Breast Milk Bank and the Pregnancy Care Center.
Fiocruz Global Health Center