The most recent HA-REACT Steering Committee Meeting took place on April 26-27, 2018, in Prague, Czech Republic, hosted by the National Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Addiction “Urad Vlady Ceske Republiky” (NMS).
HA-REACT Work Implementation
Core thematic areas of this meeting were drug situation in the Czech Republic, financial situation of HA-REACT; reporting and evaluation on the last year and this year performance; upcoming events; issues for the upcoming amendment and updates of all work packages (WP) by WP leaders.
The Joint Action is reported to perform well: all work packages are on their way to finalise their deliverables. WP4 on Testing and linkage to care is about to publish its training manual on HIV and HCV rapid testing in low threshold setting for people who use drugs (PUD), while WP5 on Scaling up harm reduction is currently drafting its manual on how to overcome professionals’ reluctance towards harm reduction services, and WP6 on Harm reduction and continuity of care in prisons is implementing its pilot project on condom vending machines in the Czech prison “Pankrác” in Prague. At the moment, the WP is mapping existing practices of programs addressing the needs of injection drug users, harm reduction services and accessibility to health care for PUD, as well as the continuity of care (HIV, HCV and TB). WP7 on Integrated care is conducting its last workshops and is on the way to draft its practical toolkit about the implementation of care models, which will be ready in late summer. The guidance on funding mechanisms is already online, published by WP8 on Sustainability of long-term funding.
Prison “Pankrác” in Prague
The side event of the meeting was a field trip organised by NMS to the “Pankrác” prison in Prague, where the pilot project on the condom vending machine is running. Four vending machines are installed in four different units with approximately 220 available condoms every month. From 48 to 80 inmates per unit have access to the machine, which is installed at the toilets.
Conferences and other meetings
- The HA-REACT Joint Action participates at the Satellite Symposium at the International AIDS Conference 2018 in Amsterdam on Monday, July 23 at 14:45-16:45. The agenda will be soon available here.
- At the 7th International Symposium on Hepatitis Care in Substance Users, which will be organised in Portugal on September, 19-21, 2018, a session on how we can better integrate HCV, other co-infections and harm reduction services for PWID has been planned in collaboration with HA-REACT, HepCare and other initiatives. Further information will be available here.
- The closing conference of the HA-REACT Joint Action is planned to be part of the 4th European Harm Reduction Conference on November 21-23, 2018, in Bucharest, Romania.