The annual awards event for the “10+ SISS-Geo Collaborators of 2025” brought together about 50 awardees who participated remotely from various regions of Brazil, including the states of Bahia, Federal District, Goiás, Mato Grosso do Sul, Minas Gerais, Paraná, Rio Grande do Norte, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Santa Catarina.
The collaborators were recognized for the animal records submitted on the SISS-Geo platform, in five categories: volunteers, women, health professionals and teams, environment, and other agencies and conservation units.
The PIBSS Fiocruz team (Institutional Platform for Biodiversity and Wildlife Health) received some collaborators from Rio de Janeiro in person, who were able to participate alongside the SISS-Geo team in the auditorium of the balcony of the Fiotec Building, on the Fiocruz Maré Campus.
In her welcome remarks, Marcia Chame invited Marília Lacovat, technical consultant for the General Coordination of Zoonoses Surveillance and Waterborne and Foodborne Diseases (CGZHA/DEDT/SVSA/MS), who represented Flávio Santos Dourado, general coordinator of Zoonoses Surveillance, and Tânia Fonseca, coordinator of Health Surveillance and Reference Laboratories at Fiocruz, to join the opening panel.
Initially, the audience present at Fiocruz and online learned about the advances of the SISS-Geo platform in participatory monitoring for the surveillance of zoonoses and arboviruses in natural, rural, and urban environments, presented by Marcia Chame, founder and coordinator of the platform.
Next, Livia Abdalla, a researcher specializing in Geoprocessing at the Institutional Platform for Biodiversity and Wildlife Health – PIBSS/Fiocruz, presented Geospatial Models using Machine Learning to Predict Yellow Fever Favorability.
As every year, a professional or partner of the SISS-Geo Platform is invited to present the top 10 finishers in each category and to give the floor to the first-place winner.
To present the Volunteers category, Alessandro Romano, Specialized Technical Consultant at the Public Health Emergency Department of the Ministry of Health and a scholarship researcher at PIBSS Fiocruz, was invited. He yielded the floor to Flávia Ferreira Megda, an Agronomic Engineer from Campinas.
Marcia Chame presented the Women category, highlighting the importance and leadership of women in the health field.
Next, Pedro Zeno, a social scientist from the Youth in SISS-Geo project, emphasized the presence of young people in the project and invited Leticia Domingues from the Federal University of Viçosa to share her experience.
The category Health Professionals, Environment, and other agencies was presented by Jéssica Oliveira de Andrade, a scholarship researcher at PIBSS Fiocruz, who highlighted the importance of these professionals' role in health surveillance, citing their dedication and commitment: “They are people who build bridges between science, service, and conservation,” said the biologist, before presenting the 10 winning professionals and inviting the 1st place winner, Bartolomeu Teixeira Lopes, to give his testimony. The Regional Superintendent of Montes Claros, Dhyeime Thauanne Pereira Marques, honored the awards for health professionals in Minas Gerais, emphasizing the importance of the Health Agent of Montes Claros, Bartolomeu Lopes, and all the other 7 awardees.
Ongoing experiences with the use of SISS-Geo, this time in research and extension services, Marília Lavocat presented the use of the platform in serological surveys for plague surveillance together with the team working in the field: Igor Vasconcelos Rocha, a biomedical scientist from the Yersinia pestis Collection (Fiocruz/CYP) at the Aggeu Magalhães Institute, and Bruna Mendes Duarte, a biomedical scientist and doctoral student in Biological Sciences (UFPE) also from the Aggeu Magalhães Institute.
The Urban Zoonoses Module of SISS-Geo SUS and the “Animal Health Notification” component are new initiatives to strengthen zoonoses surveillance throughout the national territory, covering yellow fever, West Nile fever, influenza, rabies, leptospirosis, leishmaniasis, plague, and sporotrichosis.
The category Health Teams, Environment, and other agencies was presented by Pedro Oliveira Passos, Technical Consultant of the General Coordination of Arbovirus Surveillance of the Ministry of Health, who thanked the opportunity to recognize the teams that stood out. He invited the team's representative, Renata Defante, Technical Supervisor of the Zoonoses Control Division, and the Municipal Secretary of Health of Foz do Iguaçu, Fabio de Mello.
Among the experience reports, Gisele Freitas, Technical Health Director II of the Vector-Borne Diseases and Zoonoses Division of the “Prof. Alexandre Vranjac” Epidemiological Surveillance Center, Disease Control Coordination of the São Paulo State Health Secretariat, presented the experience of implementing SISS-Geo in the state of São Paulo.
To present the last category, Conservation Units, Fábio Abreu was invited, Head of the NGI of ICMBio in Palmas, who coordinates the Mata Preta Ecological Station, the Araucárias National Park, and the Campos de Palmas Wildlife Refuge. He presented the winning UCs and invited the 1st place winner to speak, represented by the Manager of APA Campinas, Braz dos Santos Adegas Júnior, who is also the Secretary of Climate, Environment, and Sustainability of Campinas, São Paulo.
Marcia Chame highlighted the participation of 72 Indigenous Health Agents (AIS) and Indigenous Sanitation Agents (AISAN), SISS-Geo collaborators, from 32 villages and 5 Brazilian states.
The new SISS-Geo ambassadors were introduced by Pheterson Godinho, who was the first SISS-Geo ambassador 10 years ago.
Marcia Chame closed the event by thanking everyone and wishing a year of many achievements for all SISS-Geo collaborators and partners.