Subject: Invitation to request an 2020 WHA official side event for hepatitis elimination.
From: John Ward <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Cc: Mohamed Hassany <[email-masked]>, Huma Qureshi <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2020 15:05:02 +0000

Dr. Tikaradze- It's my pleasure, as Director of the Coalition for Global Hepatitis Elimination, to invite you to join with Pakistan and Egypt in requesting and participating in an official side event at the 2020 World Health Assembly May 17-21 in Geneva. The objectives of the official side event are to a) raise awareness of the WHA endorsed goals for hepatitis elimination, b) share implementation strategies of model national programs for hepatitis elimination, c) reveal the promising opportunities for hepatitis elimination in other high burden countries and d)  discuss how global collaborations of diverse stakeholders can share lessons learn and accelerate progress toward hepatitis elimination.

To meet these objectives, the participation of Georgia will be very helpful. Following Egypt and Pakistan on the program,  Georgia sharing lessons learned will provide additional examples of what other countries can accomplish by committing to hepatitis elimination.

As the former chair of the Technical Advisory Committee, I am familiar with the Georgian national commitment to HCV elimination and the remarkable progress of your national program. I continue to collaborate with Dr Amiran. I also am aware of Georgia’s earlier efforts to hold an WHA side event to highlight for HCV elimination.  https://apps.who.int/gb/Side-Events/WHA72/pdf_files/Georgia.pdf  I hope by joining together our application for 2020 will be accepted.

I'm copying my colleagues in Egypt, Dr Hussany, and in Pakistan, Dr Qureshi, who are representing their countries in writing this application. If you agree, please let us know who will be the point of contact for the participation of Georgia  in the official side event.

I also invite you and your colleagues to participate in the program for an unofficial side event for hepatitis elimination to be held at the Woodrow Wilson Hotel, May 18th, 7:00-10:00 PM in Geneva. The  event will bring together a larger and more diverse group of stakeholders including interested countries, organizations, and leading companies.

I look forward to your reply.

All the best.

Regards: John

John W. Ward, MD

Director, Coalition for Global Hepatitis Elimination

The Task Force for Global Health

330 W. Ponce de Leon Ave.

Decatur, GA 30030

404-796-7325 (o)

404-456-8167(m)

[email-masked]

www.globalhep.org

Twitter @GlobalHep