The results of the Optima model analysis for 11 EECA countries have become available

Due to the fact that the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria – one of the main donors of the HIV response in Eastern Europe and Central Asia over the past 20 years - has been gradually reducing funding for epidemic response programs in the region, countries are looking for ways to more effectively invest available domestic resources in this area.

"These changes are based solely on epidemiological and economic arguments," explains Dumitru Laticevski, Regional Manager of the Group for Eastern Europe and Central Asia of the Global Fund. "The economy here is significantly better for the same level of disease burden than the global average, so it is expected that the region will increasingly fight it on its own."

The key task of the Global Fund, UNAIDS and other partners at this stage is to strengthen the national response and "reduce the problem to a size that governments can cope with on their own," Mr. Laticevski added.

In a series of studies on the effectiveness of resource allocation in response to HIV conducted in 2014 in the EECA region with the support of the World Bank, the UNAIDS Secretariat and co-sponsors, the Global Fund, USAID/PEPFAR and other organizations, countries were recommended to prioritize investments in the most cost-effective strategies, including updating HIV testing and treatment protocols, reducing the cost of treatment and optimization of the provision of services. The research is based on data from Optima HIV mathematical modeling, which has been used in more than 60 countries around the world to determine the most effective HIV-related investments.

A new wave of allocative studies has recently been completed in 11 countries of the region (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Romania, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan). Individual reports with a set of recommendations for each country are available, as well as a regional report with aggregated analysis results for eleven countries.

Read more about this on the UNAIDS website