Revista Chilena de Infectología has recently been accepted for index listing in the Index Medicus via the MEDLINE data base. This breakthrough prompts reflection on the nature of regionally focused subspecialty journals and what such a listing means for better dissemination of scientific and medical discoveries reported in such journals. There is a conscientious global effort at present to better represent regional journals in indexing systems and to make access easier for persons in less wealthy nations to medical and public health information via the internet. These trends are reviewed and discussed in the context of Chile's national medical and public health literature