Belarus to host the Regional Consultation on Expanding Access to Affordable and Quality Assured ART
Minsk organizes the Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA) Regional Consultation on Expanding Access to Affordable and Quality Assured Antiretroviral and Antituberculosis medicines. The Consultation planned for November 23, 2016 is to be hosted by the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Belarus with organizational support by The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the Stop TB Partnership.
The participants of the technical consultations will discuss strategies, actions and opportunities for ensuring longterm access of EECA countries to quality assured ARV and MDRTB drugs at affordable prices and increasingly funded with domestic resources. Strategies may include streamlining the use of domestic and international procurement mechanisms, bolstering the capacity of domestic manufactures to produce and export qualityassured medicines, addressing intellectual property issues and their alignment with national legislation, broadening and simplifying registration of generic drugs as well as optimizing drug regimens in line with WHO recommendations.
The Regional Consultation will conclude with a high level event under the leadership of the Ministers of Health of the respective countries and with the engagement and support of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, UNAIDS and Stop TB Partnership to reach a political agreement and reinstate the commitments made at the High Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS in New York in June 2016.
The main outcome of the Consultation will be the adoption and signing of the Declaration on expanded and rapidly scaled up access to affordable quality assured ARV and TB drugs in EECA
