Past events

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…

The national workshop "To the treatment – the possibility of HIV, HCV and TBC treatment of intravenous drug users" was part of the HA-REACT Joint Action work package 7. This workshop took place on April 23 and 24, 2018, in Budapest, Hungary. HIV/HBV/HCV national prevalence studies have been conducted since 2006 among intravenous drug users in Hungary. HCV prevalence was doubled between 2011 and…

The second national workshop in Vilnius was aimed to look at integrated care models in various municipalities (not just Vilnius). It took place on April 18, 2018, in Vilnius, Lithuania. One expert of the Republican centre for addictive disorders introduced an overview on health services for people who inject drugs (PWID) in Lithuania (the systematic analysis) and a second expert shared…

The 2nd European ChemSex Forum, 2018, calls for concrete actions at the local level to provide strategic resources to ChemSex responders. Working together to develop a platform to engage in international, cross-sector, multi-disciplinary dialogue around ChemSex – defined by the use of specific drugs ("Chems") in a sexual context - and facilitate coordinated responses to ChemSex issues in locales…

The first PrEP in Europe Summit will take place in Amsterdam on Friday to Saturday 9-10 February, 2018. This will be the first community-focused conference on HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to happen in the European region. The Summit will bring together health and public health commissioners and policy directors, researchers and clinicians, and PrEP users and advocates. It aims to help…

On December 18 and 19, 2017, the EU HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis and Tuberculosis Civil Society Forum took place in Luxembourg. 26th CSF Agenda 26th CSF Summary of the Report 26th CSF Full Report of the Meeting  List of Annexes: Annex 1 Legal and political context for EU action on HIVAIDS, hepatitis and tuberculosis Annex 2 Health Care Reform in Latvia Annex 3 Update on the Integrate Joint Action Annex 4…

In order to improve harm reduction services, mobile outreach units (busses) will be introduced in Estonia in 2018. These will provide harm reduction services (needle exchange, rapid HIV testing, counseling, etc.) for PWID in Estonia's capital city Tallinn and the North-Eastern cities where injecting drug use is most prevalent. In the future mobile outreach units will also provide methadone and…

This workshop  will have a train-the-trainer format and will gather approximately 30 people who are medical, social and therapeutic staff working in prison services. The aim of this workshop is to empower the participants with adequate knowledge and skills to enable them to pass on and promote examples of best practice to their colleagues. The workshop is is by-invitation only.

AIDS Action Europe (AAE) is organising its Member and Partner Meeting 2017, on Sunday, 12 November in Berlin. The AAE Steering Committee initiated this meeting for the first time in 2016 to identify needs and demands of AAE’s member organisations. This year the Meeting will focus on two issues that concern NGOs in the field of HIV and co-infections: 1. the World AIDS Conference (IAS) in Amsterdam…

HA-REACT is organising its 3rd Partnership Forum, in connection with the Lisbon Addictions 2017, the second European Conference on Addictive Behaviors and Dependencies. Associated and collaborating partners, as well as advisors and invited guests, will gather to discuss the progression of the HIV and hepatitis C epidemics in the EU, progress made so far and future plans of the HA-REACT Joint…

The session "Harm reduction for people who inject drugs in Europe: findings from three major European projects" will take place on Wednesday, October 25, at the Lisbon Addictions 2017, the second European Conference on Addictive Behaviours and Dependencies, which is a multidisciplinary conference that provides a forum for networking across the addictions. This session will focus on harm reduction…

Safe, voluntary testing for key and most affected populations, a joint statement from key population networks, regional networks, HIV and Hepatitis organisations We applaud European HIV–Hepatitis Testing Week’s (ETW) continuing efforts to: 1. Ensure effective, comprehensive, rights-based, safe, anonymous and voluntary HIV-Hepatitis testing is available and accessible for everyone, and 2. Promote…

The countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia are some of the few regions in the world where new HIV infections continue to grow. At the end of 2015 in the Russian Federation, the number of officially registered people living with HIV reached one million. Two-thirds of new infections in Europe occur in Russia. According to UNAIDS, only 21% of HIV-infected people have access to treatment…

There will be altogether three workshops on the following themes: 1) clinical/management issues of OST provision (main target: physicians and other health care professionals), 2) key intervention components of harm reduction, and 3) overdose prevention. In the 2nd and 3rd workshops also amphetamines and hepatitis will be focused. The overall aim of WP5 is to scale-up and build capacities for harm…

This three-day training for low threshold facilities working with people who use drugs will focus on referral clients with reactive HIV/HCV rapid test result to confirmatory tests and other medical and social services. The workshop focuses on local situations in Latvia and Hungary and is by-invitation only.

The meeting will first examine the results and policy implications of the projects Optimising testing and linkage to care for HIV across Europe (OptTEST) and Operational knowledge to improve HIV early diagnosis and treatment among vulnerable groups in Europe (Euro HIV EDAT). In particular, it will address: Ways to overcome barriers to HIV testing with new approaches Tools for innovative testing…

The main goal of this workshop is to bring together different institutions involved in delivering HCV, HIV, TB and harm reduction services to PWID. The workshop will also address the stakeholder´ s roles and responsibilities and will discuss possible models for future collaboration. Discussion will include patient referral pathways and the possibility of achieving best treatment outcomes for…

1st national workshop "Preventing Opiod Overdose Deaths - Increasing Access to Nalaxone": WP7 organised a all day workshop with the aim of improving existing take-home naloxone (THN) programmes by engaging general practitioners, police and prison staff as well as pharmacists, and teaching these stakeholders about integrated care (as part of the HA-REACT joint action). The 1st national workshop…

The IAS Conference on HIV Science features the latest HIV science, including basic, clinical and prevention research. It brings together a broad cross section of HIV professionals from around the world with a focus on implementation – moving scientific advances into practice. More information you can find on the conference website.

60 delegates from 14 countries gathered in Luxembourg to participate in the “Needle exchange and other harm reduction measures in prison settings” conference which was organized by Patrick Hoffmann (Ministry of Health) and was part of WP 6. Lydia Mutsch, Minister of Health of Luxembourg and Felix Braz, Minister of Justice of Luxembourg, opened the event, welcoming the participants and…

On June 20 and 21, 2017 the renewed and extended EU HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis and Tuberculosis Civil Society Forum took place in Luxembourg. 25th CSF Agenda 25th CSF Summary of the Report 25th CSF Full Report of the Meeting  List of Annexes: Annex 1 CBVCT - Situation of testing in non-medical settings in Lithuania Annex 2 Stigma across Europe -Legal and Regulatory Barriers to testing and treatment…

The meeting highlights good practices of Luxembourg prison in terms of harm reduction, the problems faced and how these are overcome. In different working groups, the aim is to find out what the barriers in the focus countries are and how we can help them to overcome these barriers. Fruitful discussions on needle exchange and other harm reduction measures are wished, a highlight will certainly be…

The 2nd Spanish HIV Clinical Forum: Integrase Inhibitors is coming to Málaga on 10 & 11 May this year! The meeting will take place just prior to SEIMC 2017 and will include plenary lectures in Spanish and English and plenty of opportunities to interact with key experts in the field during Q&A and discussions! Abstract submission is open and Conference Participation Grants are available!…

Two delegations from Latvia and Lithuania visited Prague (25-27 April), as part of the European “Joint Action on HIV and Co-Infection Prevention and Harm Reduction” (HA-REACT). Latvian and Lithuanian professionals from a variety of social health fields visited different harm reduction organisations offering interventions intended to prevent the harmful effects of drug use. They shared experiences…

The Hepatitis-C Community Summit was held in Amsterdam, on the 18th and 19 of April 2017, and was organized by the Correlation Network Hepatitis C Initiative. During the welcome speech, Eberhard Schatz expressed his hope that this meeting would contribute to hepatitis C elimination. In order to achieve this goal, we need to treat everyone. Unfortunately, there are still barriers to treatment due…

INTEGRATED CARE: WHY? BUILDING A PLATFORM FOR INTEGRATED CARE During the first regional harm reduction conference organised by Eurasian Harm Reduction Network (EHRN) in Vilnius, Lithuania, WP7 organized a one day side event on integrated care (as part of the HA-REACT joint action). This international workshop was organized in order to improve collaboration on national and international level, to…

In today’s global health landscape we are witnessing a general movement away from external, international funding, and towards national health budgeting for public health. As many countries are overwhelmed with this task we will need innovative funding mechanisms in order to achieve the goal of ending HIV and hepatitis in Europe. This is why HA-REACT held a meeting on “The Financing and…

The National AIDS Centre, in cooperation with the Central Board of the Prison Service in Poland, seeks to improve the provision of health care to inmates, with particular attention to: implementation of opioid substitution treatment (OST); harm reduction measures; and continuity of treatment for prisoners who use drugs, live with HIV or are co-infected with HBV, HCV, TB, and STIs.  During the two…

AAE is going to participate in the 2nd HepHIV conference which takes place in Malta 31 January - 2 February 2017. We want to encourage members of civil society organisations particularly from Central and Eastern European and Central Asian countries to submit abstracts and apply for scholarship! Deadline for abstracts / scholarship applications is 17 October. Please see below list of topics/…

As part of HA-REACT work package 4 a 3-day training on HIV and HCV testing for 12 NGO representatives working with people who use drugs (PWID) in Hungary took place on the 13-15th December 2016 .This training was in partnership with the National Center for Epidemiology of Hungary. The training participants learned about rapid test provision, core skills of pre- and post-counselling, and community…