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Add to Preferred Sources2018 was marked with innovations, greater scale and remarkable results in fighting HIV, tuberculosis and hepatitis. Next year, Ukraine will be challenged with the transition of most of the services from donor to state funding.
We celebrate key achievements of the outgoing year, which set a solid ground for successful 2019:
1. Nation-wide HIV prevention efforts focusing on Key Populations has brought the epidemic under control. In 2018, 200 000 PWID, 38 000 SWs, 43 000 MSM have accessed HIV prevention services. We run the largest harm reduction program funded by the Global Fund globally. Next year we will pass this successful program to the government for continued funding and management. The Alliance for Public Health (APH) will continue assisting with program oversight, monitoring, and technical support to ensure consistently high quality and coverage.
2. Effective innovations including PrEP, HIV oral and blood self-testing, tailored programs for transgenders and young people, and new technologies in HIV and TB case finding have strengthened the national response to epidemics. Successful PrEP pilot for 100 MSM in Kyiv with the support of CDC became a ground for scaling up PrEP up to 2 800 MSM all over Ukraine next year.
3. APH brings new effective approaches in finding missing TB cases and TB treatment. Index screening scaled up through Results-Based Financing (RBF) allowed for a 4 times increase in the number of identified TB patients in 2018 compared to 2017.
4. Hepatitis C is no more a neglected disease in Ukraine. APH pioneered Hepatitis C DAA treatment with sofosbuvir and ledipasvir/sofosbuvir making it accessible free of charge for the most marginalized patients. To date 2 162 patients from all over Ukraine have been treated with 95% success rate. These achievements stimulated the Ministry of Health and other international organizations such as MSF to support generic competition and further scale-up of Hep C treatment.
5. In 2018, APH continued pursuing its ambitious goals in sustaining epidemic control in Non-Government controlled areas (NGCA) of Donbas. Continued support of partner organizations in the area, regular supplies of health products, equipment, as well as maintenance of TB laboratories, help effectively reach TB and HIV affected populations there. As of the end of the year, APH efforts ensured high-quality MDR-TB treatment for 585 patients (over 95% of all MDR-TB patients on treatment) those and provision of HIV-prevention services for 16 042 people there.
6. APH continues to strengthen its contribution to the development of programs in Eastern Europe and Central Asia through its partnership with CSO’s and regional projects. As a key implementation partner of TBEC and PAS (Moldova) APH completed a 3-year TB-REP project focused on advocacy and civil society support in 11 countries of the region.
7. Transition of the largest in Eastern Europe and Central Asia opioid substitution therapy program from donor funding to the domestic one is nearly successfully completed with the sufficient budget allocation for further scaling up to over 13 000 patients in 2019:
Original source: ICF Alliance
Published on 28 December 2018