On the same day two years ago, Mayor of Odesa Gennadiy Trukhanov joint global movement of the mayors to Fast Track to End AIDS. The city committed to achieve 90-90-90 targets by 2020 and substantially increase HIV testing and ART coverage. Odesa was the second after the Kyiv city of Ukraine, and whole Eastern Europe and Central Asia region which join the Fast Track Cities Initiative.

National decentralization process allowed local government to increase twice municipal budget allocation for implementation of the Fast Track City programme and for the first time to procure rapid test system for all municipal health care institutions. Respectively number of the HIV tests initiated by health care provider increased almost twice and more people living with HIV were put on life saving ARV treatment with optimised fixed dose combination regiments treatment. New and third in the city OST site was opened and now providing more PWID living with HIV with treatment that help them to stay adherent to ART.

The Municipal AIDS Center reported good progress in 90 90 90 treatment cascade. The number of people receiving ARV increased by 50% in comparison with 2016. Only in 2018 2,200 PLHIV have started ART, effectiveness of treatment measured in viral load (less than 40 copies of the virus per 1 ml. of blood) reached 82%. However, there is a significant gap in linkages to care, almost 80% of newly diagnosed PLHIV are on 3d and 4th stage of the HIV-infection disease, period between diagnose and treatment initiations reducing but still takes from one to three months.

Importance of close cooperation with civil society and patients’ organisations and concrete recommendations of closing the existing gaps in treatment cascade were also provided by representatives of PLHIV, PWID, and LGBTI communities.

Sindhu Ravishankar, IAPAC Senior Director of the technical programme of the Fast-Track Cities Initiative in her welcoming address announced Fast Track Cities Conference jointly organised by the IPAC and UNAIDS on September this year in London, UK. She mentioned that today 300 municipalities have signed Paris Declaration. However, it goes far beyond Fast Track municipal programmes. In parallel to accelerated efforts to reach 90 90 90 this also means participation in national, regional and global efforts to End AIDS as public health threat. That is why experience exchange, analysis and dissemination of best practices are so important.

Sindhu Ravishankar, IAPAC Senior Director of the technical programme of the Fast-Track Cities Initiative in her welcoming address announced Fast Track Cities Conference jointly organised by the IPAC and UNAIDS on September this year in London, UK. She mentioned that today 300 municipalities have signed Paris Declaration. However, it goes far beyond Fast Track municipal programmes. In parallel to accelerated efforts to reach 90 90 90 this also means participation in national, regional and global efforts to End AIDS as public health threat. That is why experience exchange, analysis and dissemination of best practices are so important.

Evaluating achieved by the city progress UNAIDS Country Director Roman Hailevich have noticed that “two years ago, UNAIDS UCO put his signature next to the mayor signature under Paris Declaration and by doing that UNAIDS shared responsibility of achievement 90 90 90 Fast Track Targets. Today we can say that the city progress cannot be yet evaluated as Fast Track, but it is definitely not anymore “business as usual”. Odesa is the city were the first case of HIV-infection in Ukraine was officially registered and now with Fast Track Initiative we have clear signs and hope that it will be the first city in Ukraine which will End AIDS.”