HIV and people who inject drugs: Monitoring implementation of the Dublin Declaration on partnership to fight HIV/AIDS in Europe and Central Asia: 2018 progress report

Between January and March 2018, a survey was carried out by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) to collect data to monitor implementation of the 2004 Dublin Declaration [1]. The monitoring questionnaire was disseminated to the 53 countries that are part of the WHO European Region, plus Kosovo1 and Liechtenstein via an online survey. National health authorities were requested to complete the Dublin Declaration survey between mid-February and the end of March 2018.

ECDC further harmonised data collection with UNAIDS and WHO’s Regional Office for Europe to ensure compatibility and reduce burden on health authorities. ECDC took responsibility for collecting a core set of Global AIDS Monitoring (GAM) indicators through Dublin Declaration implementation monitoring for EU/EEA Member States, meaning there was no separate GAM reporting for EU/EEA Member States. Non-EU/EEA Member States continued to report to GAM through UNAIDS and were therefore asked to complete a shortened ECDC Dublin Declaration questionnaire, with any GAM questions removed. The data collected through these processes were then combined and included in the analysis for this report.

In May 2018, the information reported by each country was cleaned up and returned for validation. Subsequent notifications of corrections were used to update the information reported. Validation of data collected through the GAM process was conducted by UNAIDS.

The survey contained specific questions in relation to the HIV epidemic among people who inject drugs (PWID) in addition to questions relating to current national prevention interventions, policies and barriers to the public health response to the epidemic.