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Through the Scholarship Programme, the conference organizers commit to make the AIDS 2018 conference accessible to people from resource-limited settings, researchers, young people, key and vulnerable populations and community representatives. The Scholarship Programme is open to everyone around the world working or volunteering in the field of HIV and AIDS who is at least 16 years of age at the time of the conference. This programme provides financial assistance to help people who would otherwise be unable to benefit from the conference.

Stop TB Partnership Secretariat engaged with essential partners to support their efforts and country TB programmes to advance in the fight to end TB in the European Region to prepare the ground for the UN High Level Meeting for TB in 2018. In just one week, three regional meetings held in Astana, Kazakhstan, in Tallinn, Estonia and Minsk, Belarus put TB in the spotlight in a region that can lead the way towards a world free of TB.  The discussions were centered around migration and migrants and their access to services, how to sustain and expand programmes after donor support ends and how communities, civil society, and networks of people affected by TB can work together.

The organizers of the VI International Eastern Europe and Central Asia AIDS Conference (EECAAC 2018) provide 10 stipends for Netherlands-based organizations to participate in the Conference. The forum will be held three months before the XXII International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2018), which will be hosted by Amsterdam on 23-27 July 2018.

On December 1, a wide range of activities marked the World AIDS in Ukraine. On this day, the first in Ukraine online test for HIV was presented in Kyiv. It is available at HIVtest.com.ua or via a mobile application ‘HIV test.’ The test contains about two dozen of questions – their number depends on the respondent’s lifestyle. For example, the question “Do you use condoms when having sex or not?” is relevant in Ukraine, where 51% of people living with HIV get infected through the sexual route of transmission.

From 8 July to 20 October 2017, a train carriage went throughout the territory of Russia offering HIV testing services to everyone interested. The campaign was aimed at raising the awareness and increasing the coverage with testing services among the general public. The train offering HIV testing is a project of the Russian Ministry of Health in cooperation with the Russian Railways. The campaign was initiated within the State Strategy to Combat the Spread of HIV in Russia through 2020.

Kyrgyzstan marked the World AIDS Day on December 1 under the Slogan “My Health, My Right.” Competitions, quizzes, a flash mob, debates, a race, a fashion show, and meetings with journalists were dedicated to the World AIDS Day. The most surprising thing during these events was the number of people who publicly disclosed their HIV status.

Sanat Alemi is one of the civil society organizations (CSOs) supported by the Improved TB/HIV prevention & care – Building models for the future project which gives support to TB patients and their relatives. Founded in 2016 in Almaty, Kazakhstan by a group of ex multidrug-resistant or extensively drug-resistant TB patients, they quickly showed successes through their established self-support groups as well as one-to-one TB patient support. Sanat Alemi is also implementing several community-based activities such as social mobilization, advocacy, and communication to improve TB literacy among people affected by TB, TB/HIV, AIDS and other socially significant diseases (drug abuse, alcoholism, etc), aiming at reducing stigma, discrimination.