The Elton John AIDS Foundation recently announced new funding opportunities and visited GHRCCA offices.
Above, the Global Health Research Center of Central Asia (GHRCCA) -- established by SIG in 2007 to advance solutions to health and social issues in Central Asia and the surrounding region -- recently held a staff retreat for team building, planning, and preventing burnout.
And no wonder: GHRCCA staff have been working tirelessly. In addition to the Elton John AIDS Foundation news shared below, staff shared their work at an ICAP regional meeting and will be attending the 2019 PrEP in Europe Summit and presenting at the Regional Community Meeting on PreP Development in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
This month, GHRCCA announced the launch of a ground-breaking partnership with the Elton John AIDS Foundation and Gilead Sciences to address the growing HIV epidemic in Eastern Europe & Central Asia: The RADIAN initiative. Sir Elton John, founder of the Elton John AIDS Foundation, said,
I’m delighted that the Foundation is once again working with Gilead through RADIAN to provide much-needed support and funding to reverse trends and reach some of the world’s most vulnerable people. Together, we can create change, save lives and ensure no one is left behind in the fight to end the epidemic.
Assel Terlikbayeva, Regional Director of GHRCCA, participated in a panel discussion at the Elton John AIDS Foundation in September in London where the aforementioned new funds for RADIAN were announced to ensure no one is left behind in the global fight for an AIDS-free world. More about the initiative in this Elton John video.
Jake Rashbass, a Manager at The Elton John Foundation, recently visited GHRCCA sites at Nur-Sultan, Almaty and Shymkent this past August. Above, he speaks with Kojakhmet Mashirov, the Deputy Director of Shymkent city AIDS center, Kozhakhmet.
Referencing the UNAIDS 90-90-90 strategy which aims to ensure that by 2020 90% of people living with HIV know their status, 90% diagnosed with HIV receive sustained antiretroviral therapy, and 90% of all people receiving antiretroviral therapy will have viral suppression, Mr. Mashirov says,
We, as an AIDS center, can do the second and the third 90s, but the only you, as NGOs, can help us with the first 90.
