Indira Aitmagambetova, PhD, Associate Director for the HIV/AIDS and TB Program for Kazakhstan, Center for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC)

She serves as the Associate Director for the HIV/AIDS and TB Program for Kazakhstan, CDC. In this position, she manages several projects and works closely with the Kazakh Scientific Center for Dermatology and Infectious Diseases of the Ministry of Health and local health care providers to improve the quality of HIV prevention and treatment programs as well as to strengthen strategic information systems in Kazakhstan. Indira Aitmagambetova is a medical doctor trained in internal medicine. She also holds a doctorate in Physiology.  Her areas of professional interest include HIV program implementation for key populations, monitoring and evaluation, quality improvement and health system strengthening. Dr Aitmagambetova is a member of the Global Fund Country Coordination Mechanism in Kazakhstan.

Ganna Dovbakh, Executive Director at the Eurasian Harm Reduction Network (EHRA)

Ganna is originally from Ukraine and is known regional as a community mobilization trainer and expert. She also has extensive knowledge of health and social programs, in organizing capacity building systems, in social research, as well as in leadership support to civil society organizations and activists. In recent years, Ganna has worked intensively in advocating for sustainable funding of quality harm reduction services in the Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia (CEECA) region. She holds a Master of Arts (MA) in Social Psychology as well as a MA in Culture Studies and has authored numerous publications concerning community system support.

Justyna Kowalska, MD, PhD, Senior Consultant, Hospital for Infectious Diseases in Warsaw; Professor of Medicine, Department of Adults’ Infectious Diseases, Medical University of Warsaw, Poland

Dr Justyna Kowalska is a Professor of Medicine at the Department of Adults’ Infectious Diseases, Medical University of Warsaw and Senior Consultant in Infectious Diseases at the HIV Out-Patient Clinic at the Hospital for Infectious Diseases in Warsaw, Poland. She  completed her Ph.D. at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark on the long-term effects and toxicity of HIV treatment. During a period of over twenty years working in the field of HIV, Kowalska carried out numerous scientific projects and contributed to international research activities. Her main research interests include understanding the impact of HIV infection on both individual and public health, with a special focus on women and marginalized populations. She is a member of EACS Governing Board (Eastern Europe), WAVE Scientific Committee and the President of Euroguidelines in Central and Eastern Europe Network Group.

Olą Belyaeva, Eurasian Network of People who Use Drugs, Program Coordinator.

Olą Belyaeva is a drug policy reform activist and narcofeminist from Ukraine with two decades of experience in advocacy, services and community mobilising. For 21 years of her working experience, she has gone from organizing harm reduction programs in the city of Dnipro, Ukraine; mobilizing the community of substitution therapy patients in Ukraine to improve access and quality of service; and is currently the Program Coordinator of the Eurasian Network of People Who Use Drugs and a member of the Board of the International Organization for Harm Reduction

Nikolay Lunchenkov, MD, is a LGBTQI+ health consultant at ECOM (Eurasian Coalition on Male Health).

Nikolay is an infectious diseases doctor and LGBTQI+ health consultant. Since he graduated in 2016 from Sechenov University (Moscow), he has worked as a medical doctor and community manager in Global Health leading organizations for several years.
Between 2020 – 2021 he conducted a study about substance use among gay men in Russia as a part of “Chemsex in Russia Project” initiated by Terrence Higgins Trust in the UK.
He currently serves as an LGBTQI+ Health coordinator in Eurasian Coalition on Health, Rights, Gender and Sexual Diversity (ECOM). He supervises PrEP projects in EECA and provides technical assistance in the region. Besides, he is responsible for conducting different studies to understand better sexual disparities among the LGBTQI+ community and its connections to health. At the same time, he is completing a master’s degree in Health Science at the Technical University of Munich in Germany.
Thus, Nikolay has experience both from a medical and community perspective, and the main research interest is sexual health, PrEP and substance use among gay men.

Anna Deryabina, MD, DrPH, MScIH, Regional Director Central Asia at ICAP.

She serves as the Regional Director for Central Asia at ICAP at Columbia University.  In this position, she manages several projects, and works closely with Ministries of Health and local health care providers to improve HIV prevention and treatment programs as well as to strengthen strategic information systems in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Anna Deryabina is a medical doctor trained in internal medicine. She also holds a doctorate degree in Public Health, with an emphasis on health policy and management.  Her areas of professional interest include HIV program implementation for key populations, monitoring and evaluation, quality improvement and health system strengthening.

Michel Kazatchkine, Special Advisor to the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, senior fellow, Global Health Centre, the Graduate Institute.   

Michel has over 30 years of experience in the fight against AIDS as a leading physician, researcher, administrator, advocate, policy-maker, and diplomat.

He attended medical school in Paris and has completed postdoctoral fellowships at St. Mary’s hospital in London and Harvard Medical School. He is Professor of Immunology at Université René Descartes in Paris and has authored or co-authored over 500 publications. Professor Kazatchkine has played key roles in various organizations, serving as director of the national Agency for Research on AIDS in France (1998-2005), and as French ambassador on HIV/AIDS and communicable diseases (2005-2007). In 2007, Professor Kazatchkine was elected Executive Director of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a position in which he served until March 2012. Between 2012 and 2017, Professor Kazatchkine served as the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy on HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Since 2018, he is the Special Advisor to the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) for Eastern Europe and Central Asia. He is also a Senior Fellow with the Global Health Centre of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, and a member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy.

Nicole Seguy is Team Lead, HIV, STI and viral hepatitis, Division of Country Health Programmes, World Health Organization regional office for Europe.

Dr Nicole Seguy is a medical doctor with expertise in public health and epidemiology. She has been working for WHO since 2005, focusing on HIV and other communicable diseases while being stationed in Cambodia, China, and India. She was trained in medicine in Paris, and has a Master’s degree in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine as well as a degree in epidemiology from the US CDC. She has also practiced clinical care in France, Africa, and Asia.

Since April 2019, Dr Seguy has been the HIV, STI and viral hepatitis Team Lead at the WHO Regional office for Europe, supporting countries in the region in the elimination of HIV and hepatitis by 2030.

Dr Seguy has more than 20 years of public health experience in the prevention and treatment of HIV, STIs, viral hepatitis and other communicable diseases as well as the use of strategic information in public health.

Tetyana Saliuk is Research and Evaluation Manager, the Alliance for Public Health in Ukraine. She is a public health and M&E expert with 16 years of work dedicated to data collection activities to generate evidence to inform the National AIDS Strategy. In Ukraine, Tatiana is well known as PI of IBBS studies and some other epidemiological and triangulation studies since 2005.

At the international level, Tetyana is engaged in technical assistance and quality assurance of IBBS as well program monitoring and evaluation in the EECA region and outside. Her background in sociology and public health forms the unique set of skills allowing her to generate program solutions tailored to the local context.

During the last 15 years, she is constantly contributing to scientific knowledge by publishing the results of her research in peer-review journals and sharing the knowledge at conferences.

Raminta Stuikyte  is Senior Associate: Special Advisor to the WHO Regional Office for Europe on Communicable Diseases. She is social justice and public health advocate who has worked for more than 20 years on HIV, TB and hepatitis, with a focus on interventions among key and underserved populations, sustainability and transition, human rights and structural barriers to advancing national responses and evidence-based programming.

She served as the founding Executive Director of the Eurasian Harm Reduction Network. Over the last decade, she conducted consultation, multi-country evaluations and advisory functions for Open Society Foundations, UNAIDS, UNDP, WHO, Frontline AIDS and others. Since 2013, Raminta has been supporting health diplomacy efforts for advancing political solutions to the national responses to HIV, TB, hepatitis and underserved populations in EECA as the Senior Advisor to the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on HIV/AIDS (2013-2017) and UNAIDS and WHO/Europe Advisor in the region (2018-ongoing).

In November 2021, she is starting to serve as the Vice-Chair of the Technical Review Panel of the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (starting from November 2021).

She is a member of the Board of Directors of Harm Reduction International and the HIV combination prevention committee in European AIDS Treatment Group.