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Reference Group
Reference Group
The Reference Group is made up of international experts in the epidemiology of HIV/AIDS among injecting drug users or HIV/AIDS prevention and care among injecting drug users.
Members of the Reference Group 2008
| Members of the Reference Group 2007
| Members of the Reference Group 2002 – 2006
- Ingrid van Beek
- Dave Burrows
- Jimmy Dorabjee
- Michael Farrell
- Beri Hull
- Suresh Kumar
- Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch
- Fabio Mesquita
- Maurice Odek-Ogunde
- Afarin Rahimi Movaghar
- Steffanie A. Strathdee
- Emilis Subata
- Franz Trautmann
- Lucas Wiessing
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Current members of the Reference Group
Atul Ambekar
Ghziabad, U.P. India
National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre,
All India Institute of Medical Sciences
Dr. Ambekar is a psychiatrist currently involved in teaching, training, research and providing clinical care in the area of substance use disorders. He has been involved in various projects on drug use and HIV in India as well as neighboring countries, working closely with the national governments, NGOs and international agencies like UNODC and UNAIDS. He has recently been part of some epidemiological studies on Injecting Drug Use in India. His areas of interest are, epidemiology of injecting drug use and HIV, OST for Opioid dependent drug users, enhancing the access to services, capacity building of service providers and Monitoring and Evaluation. He is currently undertaking a study looking at vulnerabilities of and impact upon spouses and children of injecting drug users in India.
Tasnim Azim
Dhaka, Bangladesh
International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B)
Dr. Azim heads the HIV/AIDS Programme of ICDDR,B which, in addition to conducting her own research, makes her responsible for representing ICDDR,B on all activities related to HIV/AIDS and working with all scientists for a coordinated research effort from within ICDDR,B. Dr. Azim's research has concentrated primarily in following and understanding the epidemic in Bangladesh which is primarily IDU driven. She has been involved in developing and modifying the surveillance system in Bangladesh, in establishing quality VCT centres and promoting evidence based HIV interventions in the country. Regionally Dr. Azim has had and currently has projects in Nepal and Bhutan. Dr. Azim has more than 60 publications in peer reviewed journals and has participated as a consultant in several international missions of the World Bank, UNAIDS, WHO and FHI primarily in reviewing national surveillance systems.
Francisco Inacio Bastos
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Oswaldo Cruz Foundation - FIOCRUZ
Francisco I. Bastos, MD, PhD, senior researcher at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ), Brazil, is a physician who has extensive experience working on studies assessing populations at high-risk of HIV infection in Brazil, an area in which he is well published. He has been involved in the planning and management of multicity projects, such as the WHO Multicity Project on HIV/AIDS and viral hepatitis among injection drug users and different protocols belonging to the NIH-sponsored HPTN cooperative network. Dr. Bastos has been also involved in analyses aiming to assess the status and trends of the AIDS epidemic in Brazil. Currently he has been involved in the analysis of population based surveys on sexual & reproductive health, alcohol and substance abuse, as well as in the assessment of adherence to ARV and the emergence and putative transmission of resistant strains among people living with AIDS, especially those who are substance abusers.
Mauro Guarinieri
Viet Nam
International Constella Futures, USAID Health Policy Initiative
Dr. Guarinieri's has over a decade of supervisory and management experience, including an intensive background addressing HIV and AIDS. As resident advisor for Constella Futures in Viet Nam under the USAID : Health Policy Initiative, T01, he is establishing working relations and partnerships with the Government of Viet Nam, NGO counterparts and other stakeholders on advocacy and policy development with specific emphasis on GIPA, PLHIV networking and ARV access for most-at-risk populations. Previously Dr. Guarinieri served as a program officer for the International Harm Reduction Program of the Open Society Institute, supervising programs in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. He has also chaired the Boards of Directors of the Global Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS and the European AIDS Treatment Group. Dr. Guarinieri has an extensive consulting history, having worked in such capacity with the International AIDS Society, International Harm Reduction Development Program and others.
Matthew Hickman
Bristol, UK
Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol
Li Jianhua
Kunming, Yunnan, China
Yunnan Institute for Drug Abuse
Dr. Li Jianhua is in charge of designing and implementing programs of neuropsychiatric studies on drug use , community-based drug demand reduction and HIV/AIDS prevention for Yunnan Institute for Drug Abuse. Currently a peer education program on harm reduction in IDUs, and a condom and syringe social marketing project are carried out in Kunming by YIDA. Dr. Jianhua is responsible for training work of the national methadone maintenance treatment program and has also directed a clinical program for treatment; rehabilitation and aftercare of drug users.
Adeeba Kamarulzaman
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Head, Infectious Diseases Unit, University Malaya Medical Centre
President, Malaysian AIDS Council
Prof. Kamarulzaman is currently the Head of Infectious Diseases at the University of Malaya Medical Centre, and the President of the Malaysian AIDS Council (MAC), an umbrella organisation for HIV-related NGOs in Malaysia. At the MAC, Prof. Kamarulzaman oversees the implementation of needle and syringe programs as well as other community-based harm reduction efforts for injecting drug users. Research interests include studying the social network of street based IDU in Malaysia, substance use and HIV in incarcerated settings and integration of HIV and substance use treatment.
Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch
Poland
Director of International Harm Reduction Development Program (IHRD), Open Society Institute
Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch is the Director of the International Harm Reduction Development program (IHRD) at the Open Society Institute (OSI). Based in New York, IHRD has pioneered technical and financial support for more than 200 harm reduction projects across 23 countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and Asia. Currently IHRD focuses on policy advocacy around issues critical to the health and human rights of drug users, including the reform of repressive drug policies that inadvertently fuel the spread of HIV, the availability of substitution treatment, and the expansion of harm reduction services. In addition, Kasia served as a member of the Technical Review Panel of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and is Vice Chair of the board of the International Council of AIDS Service Organizations (ICASO). She serves on the World Health Organization’s Strategic and Technical Advisory Committee on HIV/AIDS. She was a member of the UN Millennium Project’s Task Force on HIV/AIDS, TB, Malaria, and Access to Essential Medicines. Before joining the OSI, Kasia worked with the UNDP's HIV and Development Program in both New York City and her native Poland. She received her Masters of Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992 and is now a doctoral student at Columbia University’s School of Public Health.
Jane Maxwell
Austin, Texas, United States of America
Addiction Research Institute, University of Texas, Austin
Jane C. Maxwell, Ph.D., has a doctorate in public policy from the University of Texas at Austin. She has been a member of the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services National Advisory Council and is a member of the Drug Abuse Advisory Committee to the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. She is also a member of the National Institute on Drug Abuse's Community Epidemiology Work Group, and an elected member of the College on Problems of Drug Dependence, the Research Society on Alcoholism, and the International Council on Alcohol, Drugs, and Traffic Safety. She has been a Fulbright Senior Specialist and ia an adjunct professor at the Centre for Accident Research, Queensland Universitiy of Technology. Her research specialties include trends and patterns of substance abuse in Texas, nationally, and internationally, with special interest on the US-Mexico border; impaired driving programs; and the relationship of substance abuse and HIV/AIDS.
Azarakhsh Mokri
Tehran, Iran
Iranian National Centre for Addiction Studies (INCAS)
Pratima Murthy
Bangalore, India.
National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences
Bronwyn Myers
Cape Town, South Africa
South African Medical Research Council
Bronwyn Myers, Ph.D. is a Clinical Psychologist (at the level of Specialist Scientist) in the Alcohol & Drug Abuse Research Unit at the MRC. She heads up the intervention and treatment systems research stream within this unit. Her research focus is on interventions for substance use disorders and on improving alcohol and drug treatment systems, particularly access to and the quality of treatment services. She is currently involved in several large intervention projects that address HIV risk among substance users including an NICHD-funded Women’s intervention project focusing on substance use disorders and HIV, an NIAAA-funded intervention project that addresses HIV risk among couples who misuse alcohol, and a CDC-funded treatment service improvement initiative that aims to improve the integration of HIV services into substance abuse treatment settings. She has acted as a technical consultant to the WHO on substance abuse prevention and treatment systems in South Africa and has contributed to several national policies on substance abuse prevention and treatment.
Olanrewaju Olusola Onigbogi
Ibadan, Nigeria
Public Health Resarcher
Dr. Onigbogi is presently involved in an epidemiological study of HIV among injecting and non-injecting drug users. This is a joint collaboration with the Department of Psychiatry, University College Hospital in Ibadan. Dr. Onigbogi has medical degree from the University of Ilorin, Nigeria and a Master of Public Health degree of the University of Kuopio, Finland. Olanrewaju is also in final stages of obtaining the fellowship in Public Health of both the National (Nigerian) and the West African Colleges of Medicine. Olanrewaju has been involved in research over the past 7 years with peer-reviewed abstracts at local and international meetings and publications to my credit. His main areas of interest are in HIV and associated malignancies as well as harm reduction for injecting and non-injecting drug users.
Fred Owiti
Narobi, Kenya
Adjunct Lecturer, United States International University, Nairobi
Samiran Panda
Calcutta, India
Steffanie A. Strathdee
San Diego, United States of America
Professor and Harold Simon Chair, Chief, Division of International Health and Cross Cultural Medicine, University of California San Diego School of Medicine,
Adjunct Professor, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Dr. Strathdee is an infectious disease epidemiologist who has expertise on the prevention of HIV and blood borne infections among injection drug users. A Canadian, she has led projects in Canada, the US, Mexico, and Pakistan, and has collaborated on projects in Brazil, India, Russia and Bangladesh.
Fayzal Sulliman
Beau-Bassin, Mauritius
Officer in Charge, National Dextoxification Centre, Ministry of Health and Quality of Life
Dr. Sulliman is currently in charge of the Mauritius inpatient OST program. Previously Dr. Sulliman assisted the Mauritius Government the setting the first Methadone substitution programme for Injecting Drug Users and was a key advisor to the Government on the introduction of a National Needle and Syringe Exchange Programme. Dr. Sulliman also played a key role in setting up of the first Drug Information System in the country with the technical assistance of the Global Assessment Programme (GAP) of the UNODC and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in 2001. Fayzal was also the principal investigator of the first Rapid Situation Assessment (RSA) on drug use in the country in 2004 This brought to the formulation of a National Drug Control Master Plan 2004-2009 . Fayzal's main areas of interest are epidemiology, injecting drug use and HIV/AIDS and other blood borne infections.
Abdalla Toufik
Paris, France
Head of Studies, Emerging Trends Department, Observatoire français des drogues et des toxicomanies(French Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction)
Jallal Toufiq
Rabat, Morocco
Director of the National Center for Drug Abuse Prevention and Research and the Ar-razi University Psychiatric Hospital
Mark Tyndall
Vancouver, Canada
Program Director, Epidemiology, British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS
Director, Vancouver Injection Drug Users Study (VIDUS)
Dr Mark Tyndall graduated from McMaster Medical School and completed a residency program in Internal Medicine. This was followed by an Infectious Diseases Fellowship at the University of Manitoba that included two years of HIV/AIDS research at the University of Nairobi in Kenya. He completed a Doctoral Degree in Epidemiology at the School of Public Health at Harvard University with fieldwork and data collection based in East Africa. He is currently an investigator in a number of research projects in Vancouver, including epidemiologic studies of HIV and Hepatitis C transmission, antiretroviral access and adherence among injection drug users, health care utilization among marginalized populations, an HIV vaccine trial, the evaluation of Vancouver’s supervised injection facility, and a comprehensive cohort study of survival sex workers. He is an author on over 120 peer-reviewed publications, and holds a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Senior Scholar Award.
Lucas Wiessing
Lisbon, Portugal
European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA)
Tomas Zabransky
Prague, Czech Republic
Centrum Adiktologie, University Karlova
Tomas Zabransky graduated from Medical Faculty, Palacky University in Olomouc (M.D.) in 1993. Ph.D. in epidemiology, hygiene and preventive medicine (2001). In 2003-4 he was a Hubert H. Humphrey / NIDA Research Fellow at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA, and at Drug Policy Research Centre at RAND Corp, Santa Monica. Recently, he serves as the Research and Development Manager of the Center for Addictology at the Psychiatric Clinic, 1st Medical Faculty, Charles University, Prague and he works as International Drug Epidemiology Expert for different EU and UN bodies. Tomas is author of two books and numerous papers on drugs and drug epidemiology, and member of several Czech and international professional associations. His main scientific interests include blood-borne infectious diseases and mortality of drug users, and modeling of drug markets and drug policies.
Baurzhan Zhusupov
Kazakhstan
HIV Epidemiologist
CDC Regional Office in Central Asia
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