A four-year project on HIV policy reform began in Tajikistan early in 2018. The goal is to increase access to HIV care for vulnerable populations, specifically for LGBTQI.
The IIHE Founders have been working in Tajikistan for over 15 years.
They have recently assisted the Ministry of Health of Tajikistan to submit a comprehensive proposal to the Global Fund to control HIV/AIDS for a 5 year project to reduce new HIV infections and to integrate HIV Services into the primary health care. The approach emphasizes a Rights-based approach for key populations in Tajikistan and was funded to the tune of $13,000,000 by the Global Fund. Several findings have been published.
The IIHE co-President, Dr Arash Alaei, is collaborating with the the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and UNICEF to implement the project in Tajikistan. Project objectives include:
- Monitoring the national HIV/AIDS program in treatment, new case finding, and care outcome in the country.
- Training physicians who are working in HIV/AIDS from all the regions in the country.
- Training NGOs who are involved in medical care and ART from all the regions in the country.
- Training how to apply the Active case finding method and RDS in the key population such as MSM, LGBT, injection drug users, and older people.
- Leading a scientific team in updating the National HIV/AIDS medical care protocol.
- Training for Trainers: based on the new medical guideline.
- Leading the integration of HIV services for adults and children in the existing health system.
- Providing innovative service delivery, and integration HIV/HCV/TB/MAT in non- governmental settings.
- Supporting in updating protocol and revising the National strategy plan in viral hepatitis centers.
- Evaluating to the Prevention of Mother to Child HIV Transmission (PMTCT) guideline, developed and created the new guideline for Elimination of Mother to Child HIV Transmission (EMTCT).
- Developing medical education curriculum for family physicians and midwives who are working on HIV/AIDS.
- Training selected journalists from all regions in the country and medical academia of journalism in how they can write and engaged in the community without discrimination.
- Organizing a fundraising program by inviting artists to perform in a workshop to support HIV/AIDS programs.
- Organizing a workshop to trained physicians on HIV/AIDS from eight regions of the Russian Federation.