Context In recent years, there have been efforts to upscale HIV treatment and prevention in the Western Balkans, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, including conducting studies among men who have sex with men (MSM). One commonly used method to recruit participants for these studies has been respondent-driven sampling. However, this…
Short Description COVID-19 strongly affects the living conditions of people, showing the value of reliable and timely information. The burden of disease (BoD) methodology is a suitable instrument to monitor the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on population health, but while illness and death impose a considerable impact, the disease…
Short Description The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted the national health and care systems in hepatitis control. The need to reallocate resources and personnel, decreased accessibility to services, and temporarily reduced supplies of tests and medications are likely to have far-reaching consequences for other disease areas, including viral hepatitis.
Short Description Emergency Medical Teams for medical assistance in health emergencies Emergency Medical Teams (EMTs) are teams of doctors, nurses and logisticians which deploy to an affected country in response to disasters and disease outbreaks. By treating the affected population, they provide surge capacity to support the local health system.
Short Description National Immunisation Technical Advisory Groups (NITAGs) are multidisciplinary panels of national experts providing independent and evidence-based guidance to Ministries of Health on immunisation policies and vaccine use in the population. The main task of the NITAGs is to gather, review, evaluate and structure evidence on specific vaccination topics…
From 31 October to 4 November 2022, an RKI-team from the WHO Collaborating Center for Viral Hepatitis and HIV travelled to Yerevan, Armenia, for the project COVIMPACT Hepatitis “Assessing the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on viral hepatitis B and C elimination efforts in Eastern…
What is the structure of the project, how do people work together? The project is co-coordinated by Professor Milena Santric Milicevic in Belgrade, Serbia and Professor Kairat Davletov in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Together with the RKI team, they and their staff form the steering group. At the beginning of the project,…
From 17 – 21 October 2022, the RKI organised a joint evaluation workshop for the GHPP project COVIMPACT Hepatitis “Assessing the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on viral hepatitis B and C elimination efforts in Eastern Europe and Central Asia”. Project partners from Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan from the…
National Immunization Technical Advisory Groups (NITAGs) are advisory bodies that develop recommendations for policy maker to support them in taking country-owned, evidence-based, and sustainable decisions on immunization policies. Long-standing NITAGs such as the German NITAG “STIKO”, the UK “Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation” (JCVI) or the US “Advisory Committee…