CORE Local Multi-Stakeholders' Meeting | Public Health Interventions in Thessaloniki: The Role of Local Communities and Stakeholders

As part of the CORE (COmmunity REsponse to End Inequalities) Project, Positive Voice and PRAKSIS, together with the European AIDS Treatment Group (EATG), are organising a policy dialogue – “Public Health Interventions in Thessaloniki: The Role of Local Communities and Stakeholders” – on 29 September 2025 at 10:30 – 15:00 EEST, in Thessaloniki, Greece.

BACKGROUND

Thessaloniki functions both as a key urban centre -being the second largest city in Greece- and as a critical transit hub for refugees, asylum seekers, and undocumented migrants. During the development of the CORE project and in particular while scaling up public health interventions for HIV, hepatitis B & C, STIs, and ensuring linkage to the healthcare system when it’s needed, we met several persistent barriers.

Accessibility Hurdles

Eligibility for health services remains opaque, especially for those in transition between asylum procedures. Multiple administrative systems fail to communicate, leading to service denial or excessive delays particularly harmful in HIV care, where immediacy is critical. Legal ambiguities, fragmented administrative systems, language barriers, and co-payment requirements prevent many refugees, migrants and people who use drugs from successfully navigating healthcare systems (ECDC, 2021). Long waiting times and the absence of cultural mediation services further exacerbate attrition from care.

Insufficient Diagnostic Capacity

Even when people reach public health facilities, essential diagnostics like baseline viral loads or resistance testing are frequently unavailable. According to Roka et al. (2024), 80% of HIV clinics report diagnostic shortages, undermining timely ART initiation and ongoing monitoring. A national survey of HIV specialists in 2023 revealed that 80% lacked access to baseline viral load testing and over 95% were unable to conduct resistance testing (Roka et al., 2024). These diagnostic delays hinder appropriate and timely antiretroviral therapy (ART) initiation.

Stigma and Institutional Distrust

Public health institutions remain alienating to many migrants, people who use drugs and people living with HIV due to the entanglement of healthcare, policing, and xenophobic narratives. Asylum seekers often fear that health engagement will trigger legal scrutiny or jeopardize their claims, fostering disengagement. People who use drugs are very often marginalized, oppressed and persecuted, making co-existing with other urban sectors almost impossible. HIV-related stigma compounded by xenophobic and alt-right narratives undermines trust in public health institutions (Vavoula & Reventlow, 2023).

Issue of Healthcare Providers

Healthcare Providers (HCPs) already navigating burnout often rely on informal and extra-contractual workarounds to serve marginalized patients. While laudable, these efforts remain unscalable and precarious without systemic backing.

This event aims to be an important opportunity to share experiences and proposals with local stakeholders and communities on how to overcome those barriers within the context of an overloaded public healthcare system, a rising alt-right content, the expected budget cuts on health and social policy and the limited funding that communities and organisations actually face.

Agenda

Meeting language: Greek

Participation by invitation from the local organisers.

The registration platform will be open soon.

If you have any further questions, please contact

[ Local Poster]

About the CORE project

The CORE Project (“Community Response to End Inequalities”) aims to reduce inequalities by promoting, strengthening and integrating the community responses that have proven key in bringing services closer to persons who would benefit most but face inadequate access, in particular countries where these responses are still lacking. This will happen through capacity building, networking, and the exchange of good practice and innovative approaches, as well as through a proactive outreach and engagement of relevant stakeholders, while addressing legal, policy, and structural issues to promote integration of these approaches into disease prevention and health promotion strategies and systems.

The CORE project will build on and intensify collaboration of regional networks and national and local organisations of people living with HIV, key populations, and service provider organisations. It will use, adapt, and disseminate existing national, regional, and global good practice approaches and tools from across key populations and disease areas, and provide platforms for exchange.

Read more about the CORE consortium and its plan of action here: https://core-action.eu/core-home.

#COmmunityREsponse
#COREActionEU
#EU4Health
#HealthUnion

Views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

The CORE project has received funding from the Health Programme of the European Union under grant agreement No 101080079.