Honorable Minister David Sergeenko,
We have the honour to invite you to participate in a high level working meeting on New Opportunities to Eliminate Viral Hepatitis, in Geneva on Tuesday May 23 at the occasion of the 70th World Health Assembly and the recent launch of the Global Hepatitis Report 2017. Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 3) highlight the importance of combating and elimination hepatitis.
The recent emergence of directly acting antivirals as well as affordable new diagnostics provides an opportunity to end Hepatitis C globally, and longer term Hepatitis B. However, the rapid pace of these developments means that not all key stakeholders might fully realize their potential for hepatitis elimination.
Specifically we would appreciate it if you could speak on the strategies of Georgia in pursuit of the elimination of viral hepatitis.
In keeping with this objective, the meeting will share new approaches, successes and challenges in getting value for investments to eliminate viral hepatitis and generate synergies among partners for collective action. The dialogue will focus on three main themes:
• Access: Availability of affordable new diagnostics and treatments
• Investment: Resources and new approaches to increase public and private sector investments
• Implementation: Country success factors and challenges in implementing and scaling prevention, diagnostics and treatments, policy and systems requirements, advocacy and innovation.
This high level working is co-hosted by CDA Foundation, GD Impact, Gilead and Abbott. The meeting will bring together a small group of key public and private sector actors working towards elimination of viral hepatitis, and will include Ministers of Health, and leaders from the World Health Organization (WHO) - Global Hepatitis Programme, The Global Fund, UNITAID, World Hepatitis Alliance, Center for Disease Analysis Foundation (CDA Foundation), GD Impact, Gilead Sciences and Abbott Diagnostics.
We would appreciate receiving your response to this invitation by email to Catalina Linares (email clinares@gd-impact.org) by Monday, May 15.
Participation is by invitation only – the number of participants will be limited to less than 20 to enable a high level confidential dialogue. Please find the meeting agenda with other details attached.
On behalf of the co-hosts, please accept Honorable Minister David Sergeenko the assurance of our highest consideration.
Barbara Bulc
President
Barbara Bulc, President
162, Rt. de la Capite, 1244 Geneva, Switzerland
EU tel : +41 79 263 9627
US tel : +1 646 202 1464
bbulc@gd-impact.org
www.globaldevelopment-impact.org