DUSHANBE, March 30, Asia-Plus 2009, — A roundtable meeting is being held in Almay, Kazakhstan today to discuss the regional strategy on HIV counteraction in Central Asia.
According to Andrey Sidorin, Communications Coordinator and strategist, Central Asia AIDS Control Project (CAAP), the meeting, staged by the Secretariat of the Executive Committee of the Eurasian Economic Community (EAEC) that provide technical assistance to the Project, is discussing comments on the draft regional HIV epidemic counteraction strategy, prepared by the EAEC working group.
Representatives of the ministries of health and republican AIDS centers from Central Asia’s states, non-governmental AIDS-service organizations as well as international organizations have been invited to attend the meeting. Delegation led by Deputy Health Minister Azamjon Mirzoyev is representing Tajikistan at the roundtable meeting in Almaty.
The regional strategy of HIV infection epidemic counteraction in Central Asia is based on an initiative made by participants of the third inter-parliament conference of Central Asia’s countries that was held in Dushanbe in October last year. Later, the Third Central Asian Forum of Partners working in the field of HIV epidemic counteraction was held. The Forum brought together some 130 representatives of health and justice ministries, republican AIDS centers, sanitary and epidemiological services, nongovernmental AIDS-service organizations as well as religious leaders, journalists from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to discuss the regional strategy of HIV infection epidemic counteraction in Central Asia. The discussion of the regional strategy allowed improving the coordination and harmonization of international organizations and projects work in the Central Asian countries.
Central Asian Forum of Partners working on HIV epidemic counteraction is a big regional event in the field of regional initiatives coordination on HIV infection counteraction. Since 2006 Forum of Partners has been conducted every year in one of the countries of the region. The Forum is initiated by Central Asia AIDS Control Project and the UNAIDS.
