News

13-14 December 2022

The third scientific workshop on HIV, Hepatitis C and Tuberculosis in Eastern Europe and Central Asia – EECA INTERACT 2022 – will be held on 13-14 December in Riga, Latvia.

EECA INTERACT 2022 will bring together scientists, clinicians, members of civil society, and government officials to tackle topics facing individual countries while building capacity and strengthening research and clinical networks.
Researchers from Eastern and Central Europe, Balkans, Central Asia, and the Baltics are encouraged to submit abstracts for peer review. There are a limited number of scholarships for the highest-scoring abstract presenters to attend the INTERACT workshop in person. The deadline for submission is 25 September. 

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If you are a nurse, doctor or healthcare professional involved with looking after people with monkeypox, we are asking you to contribute to this vital short survey on your experiences so far.

The survey will form part of a large piece of research understanding the experience of healthcare professionals from around the world. It is intended to better understand your experiences so as to inform policy discussions on what healthcare professionals are facing during this global monkeypox outbreak. This is being led by Professor Chloe Orkin, United Kingdom, and will support the international response.

It is anonymous and has ethics approval. It will take around 15 minutes to complete.

Click here to complete the survey.

Please do not hesitate to share this widely within your networks.

Thank you for your taking the time to complete this survey.

The WEEPI Foundation has launched a call for proposals for a new round of Stage 1 projects. The call seeks to support clinical or implementation research projects aimed at improving the quality of care for people living with HIV, viral hepatitis or tuberculosis in Central and Eastern Europe. Organisations and institutions from that region are eligible to apply.

The maximum funding for a Stage 1 project is CHF 30,000. Successful Stage 1 projects are eligible to subsequently apply for a larger Stage 2 project grant.

The deadline for submitting applications is 30 September 2022.
 

Learn more. 

We are pleased to announce that the NEAT ID Foundation, in partnership with the European AIDS Clinical Society (EACS), has developed another simple Data “Dashboard” to monitor the progress of the Monkeypox Virus in people living with HIV across Europe and the world and invite you to contribute to this initiative.

There is little data currently to gauge the impact of HIV on morbidity and mortality associated with monkeypox.  It is likely that persons with advanced and uncontrolled HIV may be at a higher risk of severe disease and prolonged viral shedding. 

This Dashboard will show by Country and Region level the number of cases reported to NEAT ID with hMPXV co-infection with HIV, the number of hospitalisations and any reported deaths. The data will be available for public viewing via www.NEAT-ID.org and as a summary to you on the Dashboard.

Your individual clinic data will only be seen by the submitting site and will be password and security protected. You will be able to access the totals by Country and Region from your input area too.

The Database will be “real-time” and we ask your initial input to be recorded for the months of April, May and June 2022 and then to input retrospectively on a weekly basis.

You will also be able to edit data if required for previous weeks. We appreciate that time is precious and have developed an incredibly simple input process.

To take part please click here. 

Please indicate your Name, Email, Site Name, City, and Country. We will respond with your individual Site login details within 24 hours.

We appreciate your support for this initiative.

WHO Regional Office for Europe and ECDC have just released their joint Monkeypox Resource toolkit to support national authorities and event organisers in their planning and coordination of mass and large gathering events.

This toolkit, jointly created by the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), provides health authorities and event organisers with ready-to-use and customisable tools for public health preparedness and risk assessment; early warning, alert and response (EWAR); and event-based surveillance; contact tracing; and risk communication and community engagement (RCCE) including health information and advice on monkeypox for mass gatherings.

This resource toolkit accompanies the Interim advice for public health authorities on summer events during the monkeypox outbreak in Europe, 2022, aiming to provide concise advice to public health authorities and guide their prevention and RCCE interventions before, during, and after upcoming summer events.

The toolkit offers a one-stop-shop for technical guidance, trainings, materials and operational tools to support health authorities and event organisers prepare for upcoming large and mass gathering events during the summer. The toolkit will be updated with new materials and resources over time. Different sections can be used by health authorities and other audiences to formulate advice to business and venue owners and event organisers, as well as participants themselves. All advice can be adapted to the local context and the relevant audience and translated into national languages as required.

We at WAVE (Women Against Viruses in Europe) and EACS (European AIDS Clinical Society) stand united in our condemnation of the decision by the Supreme Court of the United States to abolish the constitutional protections for abortion which were established 50 years ago. Access to safe and legal abortion is a fundamental human right. The overturning of Roe removes this right from women in the United States, stripping them of their bodily autonomy and silencing their reproductive power. In spite of the Supreme Court’s decision, women will continue to seek abortion care and some will die as a consequence of unsafe, unregulated practice. In addition, being forced to continue an unplanned or non-viable pregnancy will have wide-ranging impacts on the physical and mental health of women and their families, including babies born as a result.

Read the full statement

Participate in the WAVE in Ukraine online Workshop on 15 & 16 June at 16:00-17:30 CEST. 

The war-induced displacement of thousands of men, women and children living with HIV has totally changed the situation in receiving countries (mainly Poland) and in Ukraine.

Our Ukrainian colleagues need more than ever a meeting to exchange experiences on managing HIV in women.

As the online workshop will be translated live into Ukrainian and English we invite you all to attend this unique discussion.

See the programme and register here

Follow the EASL-ECDC symposium: "Developing ‘standards of care’ to strengthen country responses to the elimination of hepatitis in Europe" on 25 June 2022 08:00 - 09:30 BST. 

Responses to the elimination of hepatitis vary throughout the European region and inequalities exist in the care that people living with hepatitis receive. Ambitious goals and targets are formulated in global, European and national action plans/strategies and actions are needed for European countries to ensure uniform coverage of comprehensive, integrated and people-centred prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care of viral hepatitis and co-morbidities. European standards of care for people living with hepatitis may be a useful tool to improve, standardise and monitor the quality of hepatitis care in the European region, however it is also complex to decide on a common set of auditable standards for a region with diverse national health systems, disease burden, and priorities.

Learn more