Season’s Greetings from HIV Outcomes!

Thank you very much for your support this year!
2018 has been busy for HIV Outcomes!

In an effort to achieve better long-term health outcomes and quality of life for people living with HIV, this year the HIV Outcomes initiative road-tested our recommendations (launched in November 2017) at the national level in Italy and Sweden to assess their fitness for implementation and to demonstrate ways to overcome barriers to their adoption. A summary report of our work in Italy and Sweden this year can be found here. These national learnings and others have also fed into our online Compendium of Good Practices on long-term HIV care, with examples from across Europe.

Here are some of our highlights from 2018:

MAY: Steering Group Co-Chair, Jeffrey Lazarus, presented some of the challenges and unmet needs of people living and ageing with HIV at the Ageing with HIV Conference in Ukraine.

JULY: Stakeholders including clinicians, patient representatives, public health experts, policy makers, health system experts and industry, gathered in Amsterdam for the HIV Outcomes workshop held during the AIDS 2018 conference. Alongside the thought-provoking good practice case studies presented by participants, we were pleased that the European Commission recognised the importance of stakeholders working together on the important and often neglected issue of long-term health and quality of life for people with HIV.

SEPTEMBER: HIV Outcomes presented an assessment of how comprehensively global and European monitoring frameworks address non-AIDS-defining comorbidities at the European Workshop on Healthy Living with HIV in Barcelona.

SEPTEMBER: Members of the HIV Outcomes Sweden group held an event at the HIV & Hepatitis Nordic Conference, focusing on how to ensure safe and equal care and an end to discrimination and stigmatization for all people living with HIV.

OCTOBER: Luís Mendão represented HIV Outcomes at the IAPAC European Fast-Track Cities Workshop in Lisbon where he presented the HIV Outcomes recommendations to city authorities.

OCTOBER: Nikos Dedes, Chair of the European AIDS Treatment Group and HIV Outcomes Steering Group Co-Chair, showcased HIV Outcomes at the European Health Forum Gastein session on ‘Reaching the SDG targets on Health by 2030 – Actions needed to end AIDS & TB and to combat hepatitis in the EU’.

OCTOBER: An HIV Outcomes poster was displayed at HIV Drug Therapy Glasgow to present an assessment of how effectively health systems are monitoring HIV-associated comorbidities.

NOVEMBER: The HIV Outcomes online Compendium of Good Practices on the long-term health, well-being and chronic care for people living with HIV was launched at the European Parliament in Brussels. This ‘virtual best practice clinic’ intends to be a resource that inspires and supports stakeholders across Europe to take steps to improve the lives of people with HIV. European Commissioner for Health, Vytenis Andriukaitis, said he hoped that the mutual learnings gathered can have a ‘long-lasting impact on patients and their families’.

Next steps

During 2018, HIV Outcomes ensured that the recommendations launched in late 2017 have been fully tested and are implementable. Having identified the barriers to be overcome, in 2019 the initiative will focus on implementing the relevant recommendations in Italy and Sweden and will work to broaden the roll out of the recommendations across Europe: in Germany, Spain and Romania in particular.

With the European elections next May 2019, HIV Outcomes will also continue to advocate for the next phase of the HIV response ‘beyond viral suppression’ to be on the political agenda of the next European Parliament and Commission.

Thank you once again for your support and we look forward to keeping long-term health and well-being of people living with HIV high on the agenda in 2019!