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With this letter, we – undersigned civil society organizations – call on you to reconsider the position of Prof. Michel Kazatchkine as your Special Envoy on HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA). Michel Kazatchkine was recently announced to serve as special advisor to UNAIDS for HIV, tuberculosis and hepatitis C by the UNAIDS executive director Michel Sidibe.

It has been a year since the project Fast-track HIV/TB responses among key populations in cities of Eastern Europe and Central Asia (HIV/TB CITIES) has been operating in Almaty, Balti, Odesa, Sofia, and Tbilisi. Different countries, contexts, mentalities and different… results. Roman Dudnik, Executive Director of the Public Foundation AIDS Foundation East-West in Kazakhstan is telling about the project implementation in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

In the joint survey conducted in 2015 by the National Centre for Disease Control and Public Health, 32% of men and 2.9% of women in Georgia reported having used marijuana. The issue of cannabis decriminalisation and legalisation was first raised five years ago, but then the initiator of this idea – civil movement “The 2nd of June” – failed to get support even from the community of people who use drugs because they demanded to decriminalise not all the drugs, but only cannabis.

Over 250 thousand HIV tests will be done in Kyiv allowing to cover 10% of the employable population of the Ukrainian capital. Nikolay Povoroznik, the Deputy Head of Kyiv City State Administration, informed UNIAN Information Agency that in order to reach these numbers, city authorities will additionally procure 140 thousand express tests. HIV testing is the first step towards overcoming the epidemic because information about one’s positive status allows the timely start of treatment for the patient.

Several more cities in Tajikistan – Dushanbe, Kulob and Khujand – opened their first voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) points in three civil society organisations – Vita, SVON Plus and Amali Nek. Opening the VCT points, training the medical staff, renovating the premises and procuring the necessary furniture and equipment became possible thanks to the Bridging the Gaps: Health and Rights for Key Populations project and consultations with the AFEW-Tajikistan specialists.

This year, the issue of treatment coverage for people living with HIV has been broadly discussed in Russia on World AIDS Day. We are talking on this topic with Vinay Patrick Saldanha, Director, Regional Support Team for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, UNAIDS.

The UNAIDS 90-90-90 target, stipulating that 90% of all people living with HIV will know their HIV status, 90% of all people with diagnosed HIV infection will receive sustained antiretroviral therapy, and 90% of all people receiving antiretroviral therapy will have viral suppression, was the key issue brought up at the National Conference dedicated to the World AIDS Day in Tbilisi. The conference motto was ‘Test All, Treat All, End the AIDS Epidemic in Georgia!’ Conference participants signed the Declaration ‘End the AIDS Epidemic in Georgia.’ The Declaration is a summary of the key effective measures to be taken to curb the AIDS epidemic in the country.