Steering Committee
The Steering committee is an independent group of HIV, viral hepatitis and sexually transmitted infections experts and is instrumental in helping achieve the aims and objectives of EuroTEST (formerly HIV in Europe).
Chelsea & Westminister Hospital, United Kingdom
Dr Ann Sullivan trained in Australia and London, gaining an MD in HIV Immunology. She is now a Consultant at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. Her specific interests include expanding HIV testing, MSM sexual health and utilising technology to improve patient care and experience. As Vice Chair of the BHIVA Audit and Standards Subcommittee, she led the 2014 National HIV Partner Notification audit. Dr Sullivan was elected as BHIVA Honorary Secretary in 2016 for a 2-year term.
European AIDS Treatment Group (EATG), Belgium
Ann Isabelle von Lingen is Programme Manager for Combination Prevention, as well as a Policy and advocacy Manager at EATG. She also supports EuroTEST advocacy as part of its policy secretariat. She was previously policy officer at EATG. Prior to EATG, she was working on justice and anti-discrimination at Open Society Foundations.
ReShape, IHP, United Kingdom
Ben Collins is a community organiser; director, ReShape/IHP; board member, EATG; co-chair, European Testing Week working group; co-founder, European Chemsex Forum; advisory committee, EACS’ WAVE; collaborator, Science Health Education (SHE) Centre; HIV+, 1982; undetectable; 1998.
Professor of Medicine, Imperial College School of Medicine HIV Research Director, Chelsea & Westminster Hospital, United Kingdom
Brian Gazzard is the founding chairman of the British HIV Association (BHIVA) and sits on the Editorial Board of the BHIVA/EACS journal HIV Medicine.
Chief Executive – World Hepatitis Alliance United Kingdom
Cary James is chief executive of the World Hepatitis Alliance – a network of community-based organisation in over 100 countries. He is the former Head of Health Improvement Programmes at the Terrence Higgins Trust and head of the HIV Prevention England (HPE) programme in the United Kingdom. Cary was the European Testing Week Working Group Co-chair from 2016-2017. He holds a masters degree in Health and Social Marketing.
Coalition PLUS/GAT (Portugal)
Daniel is a Psychologist working in the third sector since 2004, and a Global Public Health PhD student. Currently Monitoring and Evaluation manager at Coalition PLUS, based in Lisbon. Daniel has been working with GAT (Portugal) since 2011 in both project management and policy/advocacy. He is an EATG member, co-chair of EuroTEST, and one of the representatives from Portugal in the EU CSF on HIV, AIDS, viral hepatitis and Tuberculosis.
Coalition PLUS, France
AIDS Action Europe, Germany
Ferenc Bagyinszky is an HIV and human rights activist from Hungary, currently based and working in Berlin, Germany as project manager at AIDS Action Europe a network of over 420 NGOs in Europe and Central Asia. He is working at the European advocacy level on issues of affordability of medications and access to combination prevention, treatment and care programs for key populations, especially from the aspect of legal environments and stigma and discrimination. He was also member of the NGO Delegation to the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board from 2016 to 2018.
European Association for the Study of the Liver, Switzerland
Francesco Negro is Emeritus Professor, formerly at the Departments of Medicine and of Pathology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, Switzerland. After obtaining his MD from the University of Turin, Italy, he was Assistant Professor at the Georgetown University School of Medicine, Rockville, MD, USA, before joining the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the NIH. He then moved to the University Hospitals of Geneva, Switzerland, where he became Full Professor in 2014, focusing his research on the metabolic alterations induced by HCV, and on epidemiology and public health issues related to viral hepatitis. He is member of the Governing Board of the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL), and member of several panels of viral hepatitis guidelines for EASL and WHO.
Professor, Department of Infectious Disease Belarus State Medical University
Antwerp Institute of Tropical Medicine, Belgium
UCD, Ireland (INTEGRATE WP leader)
Professor Jack Lambert is a Consultant in Infectious diseases and genitourinary medicine at the Mater hospital and Rotunda Maternity hospital in Dublin since 2005, he also has an adjunct academic teaching appointment at the UCD School of Medicine. Professor Lambert has over 25 years experience, in Infectious Diseases covering HIV, Hepatitis C, and other disease areas. He trained in the USA, UK, and worked for 6 years in Baltimore at the Johns Hopkins Institutes and the University of Maryland Institute of Human Virology, where he developed his skills in vaccinology, HIV, and Lyme and Co Infections. He has consultant specialty certifications in adult and pediatric infectious diseases, general medicine and pediatrics, and in sexual health (genitourinary medicine). He was director of the National Isolation Unit at the Mater Hospital from 2010-2018. He has also been involved in the Sexual Health Strategy group in Ireland and teaching GP’s throughout the country on the subject of STD’S. During his time in Ireland, he has presented widely in the field of HIV, hepatitis, tropical medicine, and lyme and co infections.
Research Professor, Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), Spain
Head of the Health Systems Research Group at ISGlobal. He currently serves as co-chair of the HIV Outcomes Beyond Viral Suppression coalition and as a member of the EASL Public Health and Policy Committee. He is the author of more than 350 publications, including the global consensus statement on HIV and health systems, which followed up his landmark proposal for a “fourth 90” in HIV monitoring, which focused on quality of life.
MD, Professor of Viral Diseases, University of Copenhagen; Director, CHIP, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Jens Lundgren, MD, DMSc, Professor, Senior Consultant, Academic Chair, Director. Director of CHIP – Centre of Excellence for Health, Immunity and Infections – and co-founder of the EuroTEST initiative (formerly HIV in Europe). Heads PERSIMUNE (Centre of Excellence for Personalized Medicine of Infectious Complications in Immune Deficiency). Member of the Executive Committee of the NIH/NIAID funded INSIGHT network (International Network for Strategic Initiatives in Global HIV Trials), chairs its scientific steering committee. Chair, scientific steering committee STRIVE (Strategies and Treatments for Respiratory Infections and Viral Emergencies); global research platform as part of global pandemic preparedness. Co-chair of the scientific steering committee RESPOND (global infectious disease consortium). Primary research focus on clinical and public health aspects of HIV infection and its infectious and non-infectious associated morbidities. In recent years, focus expanded to include respiratory infections (e.g. influenza and recently SARS-CoV-2), and infections in patients with other types of immune dysfunction (incl transplantation, oncology, hematology, and treated patients with autoimmune disease).
Department of Infectious Diseases, South Hospital & Institute of Medicine, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden
Johanna Brännström is a MD, PhD and Senior Consultant, trained at Karolinska Institute (KI), Stockholm. She has >20 years of experience in Infectious Diseases, with a sub-specialisation in HIV. Her main focuses in research are the Continuum of Care (CoC), the undiagnosed population and late diagnosis of HIV-1 infection, which was also the focus of her thesis; Assessment of patients with late diagnosis and missed opportunities in the Swedish HIV-1 epidemic, 2016. Currently she is working as a Senior Consultant at the Clinic of Infectious diseases/Venhälsan at Södersjukhuset, Stockholm, combining clinical work with translational research at KI, Karolinska University Hospital. She is the PI for the Swedish “TIME” study, which aims at developing methodology for assessment of the undiagnosed HIV population and a representative in EuroSIDA (Respond). She is a Steering Committee member of InfCareHIV, the national Swedish HIV quality register and research database. She also provides expert advice to the Infectious Diseases Control Unit in Stockholm and to the Public Health agency of Sweden.
Scientific Director, Center for HIV/STI Epidemiological Studies of Catalonia (CEEISCAT)
Jordi Casabona is a medical epidemiologist working on the HIV/STI field since 1989. He is the Scientific Director of the Center for Epidemiological Studies on HIV/STI of Catalonia (CEEISCAT) (www.ceeiscat.cat), President of the Fundació Sida i Societat, Professor of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and of Health Community Research at Universitat de Manresa https://www.umanresa.cat). He has been acting as an expert consultant for a number of international agencies in Latin America, has implemented different interventions in Guatemala, was the co-chair of the XIV International AIDS Conference (Barcelona 2002) and has been leading several European Union funded projects, during last years focusing in the monitoring and evaluation of HIV/STI and in particular community based testing.
MD, Professor of Medicine and Head of the HIV Outpatient Clinic at the University of Bonn, Germany
An active member of the HIV/AIDS treatment community, Dr Rockstroh was the Chairman of the German Clinical AIDS Working Group (KAAD) from 1998 to 2007. From 2007 to 2011, he was elected as the president of the German AIDS Society. He is currently President of the European AIDS Clinical Society (EACS) Governing Board.
TB Coalition Europe, Ukraine
Fondazione LILA Milan, Italy (INTEGRATE WP leader)
Lella Cosmaro has been working in the HIV field since 1993 in an Italian NGO, LILA - the Italian League for Fighting AIDS - one of the leading national organizations. Over the years, LILA has become more and more involved in European policies and networks: Lella is the Italian member of the EU HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis and Tuberculosis Civil Society Forum, which she co-chaired for the period 2012-2015. She has been a Steering Committee member of AIDS Action Europe from 2011 thru 2016, is one of the External Advisory Board Members of the EATG, has been the civil society expert in a number of WHO missions in the European Region and is involved in some of the ECDC advisory groups. LILA has been and still is a partner of many European projects and Joint Actions and is deeply involved in Italian projects, advocacy and policy issues.
Policy and Advocacy Manager, The Medicines Patent Pool, Geneva, Switzerland
Liudmyla possesses more than 15 years of policy and advocacy experience in HIV/AIDS, viral hepatitis and access to medicines. She used to work as Senior Program Advisor with the Alliance for Public Health (International HIV/AIDS Alliance in Ukraine) where she led policy and policy activities to support the scale-up of hepatitis C diagnostics and treatment in Ukraine, EECA and other countries where Alliance operates. Liudmyla is a member of the World Health Organization (WHO) Strategy and Technical Advisory Group on viral hepatitis and the WHO guidelines’ development and peer-review groups as well as a member of the Lancet Commission on Accelerating the Elimination of Viral hepatitis. She used to chair the Hepatitis C Group for Unitaid’s NGO delegation, worked closely with various civil society groups and other stakeholders working to expand access to treatments, and continues to serve as a member of organizing and scientific committees for international conferences and meetings on HIV, viral hepatitis and access to medicines. Liudmyla was recognized by the Economist as one of the leading voices for advocacy to increase access to affordable diagnostics and treatment of viral hepatitis. Liudmyla now works with the Medicines Patent Pool as Policy and Advocacy Manager to scale up access to affordable and quality assured HIV, viral hepatitis and TB medicines in low- and middle income countries.
WHO Collaborating Centre for Gonorrhoea and Other STIs, National Reference Laboratory for STIs, Örebro University Hospital, Sweden
Magnus Unemo, PhD, Professor, is a Senior Researcher and Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Gonorrhoea and other STIs, based at Örebro University Hospital. He serves as an advisor to WHO and leads various STI research projects, developmental work and training of professionals from other countries or students. He is also responsible for the Swedish Reference Laboratory for STIs with similar obligations. In addition, he is responsible as the main contractor of the ECDC funded European Gonococcal Antimicrobial Surveillance Programme (Euro-GASP), which is performed in collaboration with UK Health Security Agency.
University Medical Centre Ljubljana
Professor Mojca Matičič is the Head of the Viral Hepatitis Unit at the Clinic for Infectious Diseases and Febrile Illnesses, and Head of the Outpatient STI Service at the University Medical Centre Ljubljana. She leads the multidisciplinary National Viral Hepatitis Expert Group of Slovenia and is an active member of the HIV/AIDS Committee at the Slovene Ministry of Health. She is an active member of the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL), the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID), European Aids Clinical Society (EACS) and advisor at WHO HIV/STD/Viral Hepatitis sector, ECDC Viral Hepatitis Monitoring team, Viral Hepatitis Prevention Board, and Correlation-European Harm Reduction Network (C-EHRN). She serves also as an expert in a working group of European Code Against Cancer (ECAC)
Past Chair of the Board of Directors European AIDS Treatment Group (EATG), Greece
Nikos Dedes is the founder and chair of ‘Positive Voice’, the Greek Association of People Living with HIV and the founder and vice-chair of ‘Prometheus’, the Hellenic Liver Patient Association. He is a past member of the Management Board of the European Medicines Agency (EMA). Nikos participates on the Steering Committees of NEAT id (European HIV Clinical Trials Foundation) and the “HIV Outcomes – Beyond Viral Suppression” initiatives. He is a member of the HIV Treatment Guidelines Panel of the European AIDS Clinical Society (EACS) and a member of the Coordinating Team of the HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis & TB Civil Society Forum, an advisory group to DG Sante of the European Commission. He is also a member of the National Clinical Trials Ethics Committee and a member of the Board of Directors of the European Forum for Good Clinical Practice (EFGCP).
Executive Director of "Tanadgoma" Georgia
Nino Tsereteli, psychologist by background, has been working in the field of HIV/AIDS for more than 20 years. In 2000, together with the group of young professionals, she founded a Non-Governmental Organization “Center for Information and Counseling on Reproductive Health – Tanadgoma”. In 2007 Ms. Tsereteli was appointed as Executive Director of the organization. Tanadgoma is implementing sexual and reproductive health and rights, as well as mental health programs. Prevention, research and advocacy in the field of HIV, STIs, Tuberculosis, viral hepatitis, etc. is one of the major areas of Tanadgoma’s work.
Aids Fonds/Soa Aids Nederland, Netherlands
Since 2002, Paul has been working for the Dutch NGO Aids Fonds/Soa Aids Nederland. Initially as press officer and later as MSM policy officer. In this capacity he was involved in the introduction of PrEP in the Netherlands, contributed to putting chemsex on the agenda of healthcare professionals and was one of the initiators of NoMoreC, an HCV microelimination project aimed at MSM. Paul is also a member of the H-team steering committee. The H-TEAM combines various innovative interventions to prevent transmission of the virus by promoting prevention, earlier HIV testing and immediate treatment of infections. Since 2021 Paul works as strategic advisor Key Populations within Aidsfonds/Soa Aids Nederland.
Department of Genitourinary Medicine, Southampton University Hospitals & International Union against Sexually Transmitted Infections (IUSTI), United Kingdom
HIV/STI clinic of the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp
Tom Platteau is a sexologist and mental health scientist. He obtained a PhD on combination prevention for HIV. He works at the outpatient clinic of the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp (Belgium) as a clinician and researcher where he has been coordinating HIV/STI testing projects since 2009. These projects consist of outreach activities and online testing approaches. He is a member of EuroTEST Steering Committee since 2015.
Epidemiologist, Public Health England United Kingdom
Independent public health consultant Valerie Delpech has 25+ years experience in public health research, and a particular interest in HIV epidemiology. Dr Delpech is currently Director of Public Health in Northers NSW, Australia, and has extensive experience in HIV and other communicable diseases. She has worked in leadership public health and epidemiology roles for several decades at the local, national and international level. She was head of the national HIV surveillance programme at Public Health England from 2005-2021. She is a co-investigator on numerous research groups and provides expert advice on national and international committees in relation to HIV, TB and STI surveillance, prevention and guideline development. She has provided regular technical assistance to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), the World Health Organisation (WHO). Valerie is a member of the EuroTEST Steering Committee.
ANRS Maladies Infectieuses Emergentes, France
Yazdan Yazdanpanah is Director of the French ANRS emerging infectious diseases agency that fund and coordinates research on HIV, Hepatitis, STIs, Tuberculosis and emerging and re-emerging infections. He is Director of Aviesan Institute of Immunology, Inflammation, Infectiology, and Microbiology which gathers the main stakeholders of this thematic in France in the frame of Aviesan (French National Alliance for Life Sciences and Health). He is the head of the Infectious Disease department at Bichat Hospital, and he is Professor of Medicine at Paris Diderot University, France. He is the Chair of « The European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership » (EDCTP) board and the Vice-Chair of the « Global Research Collaboration for Infectious Disease Preparedness (GloPID-R) board. Master of Science degree in epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health and a Ph.D degree in public health from the Bordeaux School of Public Health.
Observers to the EuroTEST Steering Committee
European Centre for Disease Preventon and Control (ECDC): Anastasia Pharris
European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMDCCA): Thomas Seyler
World Health Organisation Regional Office for Europe: Stela Bivol (overall), Viatcheslav Grankov (HIV/STI), Marcelo Naveira (viral hepatitis)