1 in 5

According to a recent Lancet report, about 1 in 5 IDUs worldwide are living with HIV.

News story on this below. I'll try to get the report and circulate it around.

Rob




http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jVF1jHGnraGyelaqFY8Z0RCRZ6XA

Nearly one in five intravenous drug users may have HIV: estimate
5 hours ago

PARIS (AFP) — Around 16 million people around the world inject illegal drugs, and nearly one in five of them may have the AIDS virus, according to an estimate published online Wednesday by The Lancet.

The global tally of intravenous drug users (IDUs) is put at 15.9 million, around three million of whom could have the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), it says.

China has largest number of IDUs, with a mid-range estimate of 2.35 million people. The HIV infection rate among them is calculated at 12.3 percent.

The United States has the second highest total, with around 1.85 million IDUs and an estimated infection rate among them of between 15.6 percent.

The report also warned of high HIV numbers among IDUs in Ukraine and Russia, which could be 42 percent and 37 percent respectively.

The assessment is led by Bradley Mathers of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.

It is based on official national figures and estimates published in peer-reviewed journals.

The review covers 148 countries, but admits that many blanks remain where the data are sketchy or absent and the range estimates are broad.

"Areas of particular concern are countries in Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America, where the prevalence of HIV among some sub-populations of people who inject drugs has been reported to be over 40 percent," the paper says.

Injecting drug use is one of the major drivers for the global AIDS pandemic.

HIV is spread by infected IDUs who share syringes or turn to prostitution, which thus helps the virus to enter the main population.

AIDS campaigners say the problem has to be tackled by a panoply of methods, including programmes to exchange used needles for sterile ones and the use of methadone, an opiate substitute, to wean IDUs off heroin.
Hosted by Copyright © 2008 AFP. All rights reserved. More »

2008 Harm Reduction Conference - Presentations

The 19th International Harm Reduction Conference took place from 11th – 15th May 2008 in Barcelona, Spain. You can now dowload most of the presentations (including PSI's) from the following website:

http://www.ihra.net/Thailand/Barcelona2008

Enjoy!

Rob

Overdose Awareness Day

August 31 was Overdose Awareness Day.

Please see message below for an important new resource on this important IDU-related health issue.

Rob




Dear Colleagues,



Though overdose related death is preventable, it remains one of the leading causes of death among people who inject drugs. The Eurasian Harm Reduction Network (EHRN), to mark Overdose Awareness Day, August 31, has created a report highlighting the situation in our region and making recommendations for action. The report is available for download:



In English: http://www.harm-reduction.org/od/OD_EHRN_Report_en.pdf (PDF, 800 KB)

In Russian: http://www.harm-reduction.org/od/OD_EHRN_Report_rus.pdf (PDF, 1.2 MB)



Also please find attached a press release, backgrounder and a list of useful resources.Please feel free to distribute widely.



Your feedback is welcome as we want to seek ways to cooperate to better address this critical issue. We ask everybody to recognize the importance of this issue and take action!



Kind regards!
Katya

--

Jekaterina Navicke
Information Coordinator
Eurasian Harm Reduction Network



Siauliu St. 5/1 -21, Vinius, Lithuania LT-01133
Tel.: +370 5 269 1600, +370 652 00 523
Fax: +370 5 269 1601
katya@harm-reduction.org
www.harm-reduction.org

IDU in the PSI BCC Catalogue

PSI HQ has sent out to each CR the PSI BCC Catalogue on CD-Rom.

This is just a quick piece of advice for IDU program managers to briefly look through the materials that PSI has produced on IDU around the world. Materials are from countries including Thailand, Vietnam, India, Central Asia, China, and others.

It can also be accessed online at http://misaccess.psi.org/bcc_catalog/web/search.html

Cheers
Rob

On Needle Programs

Needle exchange: learning from when it DOESN'T work

Six case studies show how the complex balance of needle exchange services can be disrupted, leaving hepatitis C and HIV spreading rapidly. Common themes are resource starvation, local hostility, counterproductive restrictions, and a non-interventionist ethic. Print publication 2003 [Drug and Alcohol Findings, UK]

Cheers
Rob

Switching IDUs from injecting to "chasing" for HIV prevention

One of the new frontiers of harm reduction is "RTIs", or Route Transition Interventions - projects to help drug users switch to less risky forms of drug use, or to reduce initiation of risky forms of drug use.

PSI is on the forfront of this work with our efforts in C. Asia to reduce IDU initiation among youth.

Below is a fascinating intervention to encourage IDUs to move to "smoking" (AKA "Chasing the Dragon) heroin, a much less risky form of opiate administration.

Our harm reduction programs should be considering if this kind of work is appropriate for our different environments.

Rob

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Distributing foil from needle and syringe programmes (NSPs) to promote transitions from heroin injecting to chasing: an evaluation
The report presents evaluation results from an intervention using specially produced foil packs to promote a transition from heroin injecting to inhalation (chasing) with injecting drug users (IDUs) attending four needle and syringe programmes (NSPs) in south west England [Harm Reduction Journal]

http://www.harmreductionjournal.com/content/5/1/24

WHO, TB, PSI, GF Round 9

For those of you working on IDU issues both on the HIV and TB sides, the WHO has produced a new manual on this important topic. see weblink below.

FYI, some people are beginning to speak of Global Fund Round 9 as a "TB Round" - i.e. a round where countries should think strategically about how to scale up TB work. If your country has a serious TB problem (see your DALY Map to check, if you're not sure), now would be the time to have a meeting with the national TB program, to see if there's a role for PSI.

Cheers
Rob


POLICY GUIDELINES FOR COLLABORATIVE TB AND HIV SERVICES FOR INJECTING AND
OTHER DRUG USERS AN INTEGRATED APPROACH

Web: http://www.who.int/tb/publications/2008/en/index.html