EuroTEST – Working Together for Optimal Testing and Earlier Care

Why?

Even though combination therapy had been making an enormous difference for patients for more than a decade, HIV research in 2007 was still focused on what to do with people once they entered the clinic – not on getting them there. Therefore, that year, a group of clinicians, community activists, and other HIV organisations started a collaboration to barriers to testing, ensure early diagnosis and linkage to care on the policy agenda. It was called HIV in Europe.

What?

EuroTEST is a pan-European multi-stakeholder initiative that provides a platform for information exchange and activities to improve early diagnosis and care of HIV, viral hepatitis, sexually transmitted infections and tuberculosis. It aims to inform policy processes, share knowledge and improve the evidence base around important issues of earlier testing and care.

With whom?

The initiative is led by an independent group of experts from civil society, policy makers, health professionals and European public health institutions.

How?

The initiative implements projects. Current ones include:

European Testing Week: European Testing Week is a European campaign that encourages partner organisations—in community, health care and policy institutions– throughout Europe to unite for one week twice a year to increase testing efforts and promote awareness on the benefits of earlier hepatitis and HIV testing. http://www.testingweek.eu/

INTEGRATE Joint Action: The INTEGRATE Joint Action seeks to increase integrated early diagnosis and linkage to prevention and care of HIV, viral hepatitis, TB and STIs in EU Member States by 2020. Integrate offers a platform to disseminate and exchange best practices among Member States and facilitate the discussions on innovations and emerging issues within these four diseases. Existing tools for prevention, testing and linkage to care for HIV, viral hepatitis, TB and STIs will be evaluated, adapted, extended and implemented for one or more of the four diseases in selected pilot countries. It is a shared European effort that aspires to extend beyond the partners to create important synergies across European stakeholders, projects and initiatives. https://integrateja.eu/

HepHIV conference: these are biennial conferences on optimal testing and earlier care.
The conferences bring together civil society, policymakers, health professionals and European public health institutions and provide these stakeholders with the opportunity to learn from each other and to reflect on experiences, achievements and challenges. The conference format includes a mix of plenary sessions, expert panel and roundtable discussions and moderated parallel sessions driven by submitted abstracts selected by the Conference Organising Committee based on a thorough review process. The next HepHIV Conference will take place in Lisbon, Portugal in 2021.

For previous projects of the initiative, see here.

For what outcome?

The overall objective of EuroTEST is to ensure that people living with HIV, viral hepatitis, STIs or TB have access to testing and enter care earlier in the course of their infection than is currently the case, as well as to study the decrease in the proportion presenting late for care.