European AIDS Treatment Group (EATG)

Work package 5

Review of Community Health Workers’ knowledge, attitudes and practices about sexual health of men who have sex with men

Founded in 1992, the European AIDS Treatment Group (EATG) is a European network of nationally-based volunteer activists comprising of more than 175 members from over 40 countries in Europe. The members of EATG are representatives of different communities affected by HIV/AIDS. The EATG is a non-for-profit organisation registered in Germany, with an office in Belgium. Since its foundation, the EATG has been at the forefront of the development of the civil society response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Europe and was actively involved in setting up the Civil Society Forum on HIV. It represents and defends the treatment-related interests of people living with HIV/AIDS.

The activities of the EATG focus on treatment literacy and treatment advocacy. The mission of the EATG is to achieve the fastest possible access to state of the art medical products and devices, and diagnostic tests that prevent or treat HIV infection or improve the quality of life for people living with HIV, or at risk of HIV infection. In responding to HIV, the EATG also considers diseases frequently seen as co-infection in persons living with HIV, as well as other health issues that increase the risk of HIV infection.

EATG provides capacity building and advocacy training to different stakeholders, thus supporting better networking, increased capacity of PLHIV and health care providers, but also direct involvement of these groups in new scientific and policy activities.

In 1997, EATG created the European Community Advisory Board (ECAB). This high-level scientific platform brings together civil society, scientific researchers, the pharmaceutical industry and international institutions to address key science and policy issues related to HIV and its main co-infections like hepatitis B, hepatitis C or tuberculosis. EATG is active in several EC funded projects as community partner (e.g. EUPATI, OptTEST, EmERGE, EHVA, HIVACAR) and organizes seminars and satellite sessions during larger conferences. EATG also has been a driver of the agenda on prevention, including topics such as TasP and PrEP.

Key staff

Maria Dutarte, EATG Project Manager, coordinated the WP5 activities (together with CEEISCAT, Spain). She was in charge of contacts with the Associated Network and National Focal Points to support the identification of existing training tools, programmes and guides, good practices, needs and barriers.
Maria works as a Project Manager at the EATG and coordinates the EATG’s involvement in a number of projects funded by the EC and pharmaceutical companies. She has previously worked in project management & communications for different organisations in the fields of international health & research (e.g. International AIDS Society, the Global Fund, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and International Foundation for Science).

Giulio Maria Corbelli, EATG Member, ECAB Chair, Project Advisor, supported the WP5 activities and provided input to the scoping review as well as the review and recommendation reports.
Giulio is a member of the Board of Directors of Plus, the first network of LGBT people living with HIV in Italy (http://www.plus-onlus.it) which runs the first Italian checkpoint (http://www.blqcheckpoint.it), and member of the panel for the Antiretroviral Guidelines at the Italian Ministry of Health. He is a member of different research teams as a patient representative, such as the PARTNER Study (http://www.chip.dk/PARTNER), and the INSIGHT network (http://insight.ccbr.umn.edu). He is also a member of AVAC’s HIV prevention project pxROAR Europe (http://www.avac.org/pxroar-europe), and member of the Editorial Board for the European Patients Academy (http://www.eupati.eu/welcome/). Giulio was diagnosed with HIV in 1997 and works as a freelance journalist for magazines and websites.

Koen Block, EATG, was the Executive Director of EATG from 2009 until September 2018 and represented EATG in the ESTICOM Steering Committee. Working previously as Programme Coordinator of PLHIV within Sensoa he has long term experience on HIV, co-infections, sexual health, project development, human and sexual rights and the work on key populations. Koen Block is a board member within Sensoa, member of the PrEP advisory committee of the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp and co-coordinator of the Qualitive of Life pillar within the Belgian National HIV Plan.

Pieter Vanholder, EATG Executive Director, oversaw the EATG participation in the project and represented EATG in the ESTICOM Steering Committee, starting from March 2019. Pieter holds a Master’s degree in Law, as well as a Special Master in “Law and Development Cooperation”, obtained at Ghent University (Belgium) in 2003. After his studies, Pieter continued to work for the University as Project Coordinator for an EU-funded Partnership Program between the law faculties of Ghent University and Mekelle University (Ethiopia). In 2005, Pieter opened the Country Office for Oxfam Solidarity in DR Congo. For three years, he led that office as Country Director, developing programs with a special focus on food security and rural development. In 2008, Pieter became Country Director for the Life & Peace Institute (LPI) in DR Congo, striving to transform conflicts at local, national and subregional level. In 2016 he started to coordinate the Operations Department at Child Focus, a Belgian NGO fighting against disappearances and sexual exploitation of children. Throughout his career, Pieter has been working with HIV/AIDS as a volunteer (accompanying an HIV-club in an elementary school in Zambia and supporting orphans in DR Congo), as an academic (writing a thesis about Law, Discrimination and HIV/AIDS in South Africa), and as a professional (working in Central Africa, a region highly affected by HIV/AIDS).