A One-day Workshop on “CCM Retreat” was recently held in Islamabad to discuss the Country Coordination Mechanism (CCM) Existing Procedure, Policies, Role, Responsibilities and Conflicts of Interest Policy.
Khushnood Akhtar Lashari, Secretary Health speaking as the Chief Guest on the occasion stressed on the need to address the disease control interventions including the misconceptions regarding three disease i.e. HIV/AIDS, Tb and Malaria in Pakistan.
He termed HIV as a silent killer, but said that people living with HIV/AIDS should not be discriminated and should be treated just like the people living and or affected by other diseases. He further added that stigmatizing HIV/AIDS is unfortunate. It is a disease and urged to minimize the misery of HIV/AIDS by removing this stigma.
Participation in the Workshop from the entire constituencies of CCM will encourage and hoped for a better input coming from various members of CCM. This workshop will energize for a future role that is demanded by the CCM which is consensus building group and also take forward the objective that all the grants brought forward for the control of the three major diseases.
The aim of the Workshop was to share the information about Global Fund and its guideline. CCM existence procedure and policy, CCM role and responsibility and Global Fund R-6 requirement were discussed. CCM conflict of interest policy which is documented was also discussed.
Dr. Artashes Mirzoyan, Fund Portfolio Manager, South & West Asia Team, The Global Fund shared the findings of the Peer Research. He said that the informal observation of the group dynamic during the training and analysis was very insightful. Peer Research is a part of multimatic study that is integrated and designed to guide the content and sequence the questions.
It was stressed that there is need for a continued dialogue with sub-groups of people successfully engaged in research and analyzing.
Dr. Hasan Abbas Zaheer, National Program Manager, National AIDS Control Program speaking on “ARVs Supply – HIV Treatment & Care Program” informed that 13 treatment centre are functioning in large public and private sector hospital in all the four provinces. In addition to that, NACP is also running seven PTCP centres.
He further revealed that, in the past couple of months, the numbers of patients coming to these centre are increasing. The current figure shows that the total patients registered are 2537 whereas patients receiving ARV are 1148. Services available in these HIV/AIDS treatment centres include counseling, medical care, pharmacy support and diagnostic. Recent survey of jail inmates by the government of Punjab shows that jail inmates have been found to be HIV positive.
NACP have made special arrangement for confirmatory test for HIV, ELISA and CD4 whereas HIV viral load is also carried out.
Dr. Qutbuddin Kakar, WHO Technical Officer, Roll Back Malaria Pakistan, Directorate of Malaria Control giving his suggestion said that the oversight committee members should participate in the SR and PR committee, coordinate to facilitate SR and overcome the hurdles. The oversight committee should also look into the level of communication between the implementing SR and PRs. It should have coordinated role.
Earlier, Ms. Zarina Kauser, Senior Project Office, CCM gave a brief overview of Global Fund and its guidelines.
She said that the aim of the Global Fund is to increase the resources to fight three deadliest diseases and to direct the resources to the areas of greatest need. Low and middle income countries are welcomed to submit quality proposal for grant. Global Fund is very innovative financing institution which has open criteria for low and middle income countries.
Proposals sent to Global Fund undergo two stages i.e. Minimum Eligibility Criteria and Technical Review Process (TRP). If minimum eligibility criteria is not met then the proposal will not be forwarded to TRP. The overall objective of the Global Fund is to encourage more communities, access to the information and facilities to maximize the service to supplement the public sector input.
CCM members are the civil society members. They support during proposal development and submission to Global Fund. It is the main role of CCM members. It is of inclusion of civil society and to be vigilant of all conflicts of interest and remain transparent while appropriating the matter to the Global Fund grant or proposal.