According to WHO from West Africa to East and North has become the corridor of
drug trafficking. All the drugs coming from Latin America goes to Europe
through Africa. Most of the Air ports in East Africa especially Kenya and
Somalia including Ethiopia receives at least 50 kg of cocaine a day. While the
ports of kenya, tanzania and Eritrea receives more than 150 kg as well. from
west Africa it has become more worse than an other countries. However World
Health Organization has warned medical personal of ignoring injecting drug
users. Drugs that are injected is more commonly used by rich people. In
Tanzania and Kenya the practice is so high and this is major breeding agency of
HIV/AIDS. Please find time to read the below article written by the routers.
Arike
01 Mar 2010 00:01:11 GMT
Source: Reuters
* Most injecting drug users have little or no protection
* Experts say governments need better grasp of drug science
* "Critical problem" in Russia, China, Malaysia, Thailand
By Kate Kelland
LONDON, March 1 (Reuters) - More than 90 percent of the world's 16 million
injecting drug users are offered no help to avoid contracting AIDS, and
governments that ignore them risk a spiralling public health crisis, drugs
experts said on Monday.
A "critical health problem" is growing in places like Russia, China, Malaysia
and Thailand, they said, where drug users are a neglected population in the
fight against AIDS and the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes it.
Injecting drug use is an increasingly important cause of HIV transmission in
many countries around the world. Users can spread the virus in blood by sharing
needles with an HIV-infected person, and pass it on by having unprotected sex.
Of the estimated 16 million injecting drug users worldwide, 3 million are
thought to be HIV-positive, and drug users are thought to account for 10
percent of all those living with HIV.
In Russia, for example, around a million injecting drug users are living with
HIV and some 65 percent of new HIV infections there are thought to come from
injections.
"Although the number of countries with core HIV prevention services is growing,
the level of coverage in injecting drug users is poor in many countries," said
Bradley Mathers of the University of New South Wales, Australia, who led a
study on prevention efforts published in The Lancet medical journal.
Infection prevention steps like providing needles, condoms and substitute drugs
like methadone -- collectively known as "harm reduction" -- are seen by many
experts as key to halting the spread of HIV and AIDS, but some governments are
reluctant to provide them for fear of being seen to condone drug use.
Gerry Stimson, director of the International Harm Reduction Association,
accused such states of "playing politics with people's lives" and said millions
were at risk as a result.
UNAIDS estimates that around 30 per cent of HIV transmission outside
sub-Saharan Africa is driven by unsafe injecting practices. Stimson also
pointed to Russia as a particular problem, saying injecting drug use in the
region was now driving the fastest-growing HIV/AIDS epidemic in the world.
Mathers and his team of researchers looked at the provision of services to
prevent HIV spread injecting drug users.
They found global coverage is very poor, but also varies widely. Worldwide,
only 8 percent of injectors have accessed needle and syringe programmes in the
past year, but that ranges from an estimated 100 percent in Ireland and the
Czech Republic to under 3 percent in China, Malaysia, and Thailand.
"HIV prevention treatment and care services for injecting drug users are
clinically effective, but to exert a population-level effect they need to be
delivered to scale," they wrote.
The current level is "not sufficient to prevent, halt or turn around the HIV
epidemic among this at-risk population."
Don Des Jarlais of the Beth Israel Medical Center in New York said the poor
coverage suggested some authorities should work to bring their policies "in
line with scientific evidence".
"Long-term sustained efforts to protect the health of individuals who use both
licit and illicit drugs might require that policy makers acquire a basic
scientific understanding of drug use and addiction," he wrote. (Editing by Mark
Trevelyan)
01 Mar 2010 00:01:11 GMT
Source: Reuters
* Most injecting drug users have little or no protection
* Experts say governments need better grasp of drug science
* "Critical problem" in Russia, China, Malaysia, Thailand
By Kate Kelland
LONDON, March 1 (Reuters) - More than 90 percent of the world's 16 million
injecting drug users are offered no help to avoid contracting AIDS, and
governments that ignore them risk a spiralling public health crisis, drugs
experts said on Monday.
A "critical health problem" is growing in places like Russia, China, Malaysia
and Thailand, they said, where drug users are a neglected population in the
fight against AIDS and the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes it.
Injecting drug use is an increasingly important cause of HIV transmission in
many countries around the world. Users can spread the virus in blood by sharing
needles with an HIV-infected person, and pass it on by having unprotected sex.
Of the estimated 16 million injecting drug users worldwide, 3 million are
thought to be HIV-positive, and drug users are thought to account for 10
percent of all those living with HIV.
In Russia, for example, around a million injecting drug users are living with
HIV and some 65 percent of new HIV infections there are thought to come from
injections.
"Although the number of countries with core HIV prevention services is growing,
the level of coverage in injecting drug users is poor in many countries," said
Bradley Mathers of the University of New South Wales, Australia, who led a
study on prevention efforts published in The Lancet medical journal.
Infection prevention steps like providing needles, condoms and substitute drugs
like methadone -- collectively known as "harm reduction" -- are seen by many
experts as key to halting the spread of HIV and AIDS, but some governments are
reluctant to provide them for fear of being seen to condone drug use.
Gerry Stimson, director of the International Harm Reduction Association,
accused such states of "playing politics with people's lives" and said millions
were at risk as a result.
UNAIDS estimates that around 30 per cent of HIV transmission outside
sub-Saharan Africa is driven by unsafe injecting practices. Stimson also
pointed to Russia as a particular problem, saying injecting drug use in the
region was now driving the fastest-growing HIV/AIDS epidemic in the world.
Mathers and his team of researchers looked at the provision of services to
prevent HIV spread injecting drug users.
They found global coverage is very poor, but also varies widely. Worldwide,
only 8 percent of injectors have accessed needle and syringe programmes in the
past year, but that ranges from an estimated 100 percent in Ireland and the
Czech Republic to under 3 percent in China, Malaysia, and Thailand.
"HIV prevention treatment and care services for injecting drug users are
clinically effective, but to exert a population-level effect they need to be
delivered to scale," they wrote.
The current level is "not sufficient to prevent, halt or turn around the HIV
epidemic among this at-risk population."
Don Des Jarlais of the Beth Israel Medical Center in New York said the poor
coverage suggested some authorities should work to bring their policies "in
line with scientific evidence".
"Long-term sustained efforts to protect the health of individuals who use both
licit and illicit drugs might require that policy makers acquire a basic
scientific understanding of drug use and addiction," he wrote. (Editing by Mark
Trevelyan)
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