Intravenous Drug Use and HIV

The global "war on drugs" has had a number of unintended consequences. In many countries, HIV and hepatitis C infection rates have risen as people who use drugs often have insufficient access to care and treatment, and are frequently subjected to human rights violations. Cohosted by the Human Sciences Research Council and the Global Drug Policy Program, this session will examine how the provision of lifesaving services, such as various means of harm reduction, can be used to tackle growing HIV rates among drug users and why the approach of criminalizing drug use should be avoided in national and international drug policies.

Efforts aimed at implementing sustainable strategies to combat IDU are to a large extent limited by the scarcity of data on the magnitude of the IDU problems in sub-Saharan Africa. The SAHARA Conference will therefore provide a unique contribution by strengthening its bias towards evidence-based interventions for IDU. By implementing and building research capacity in the region on IDU, appropriate programmes can be designed to comprehensively address all aspects of the problem including how each contributes to fueling the spread of HIV.

Aim

To provide a platform that will assist discussion to implement and build research capacity in the sub-Saharan African region on IDU and design appropriate programmes to comprehensively address all aspects of the problem including how each contributes to fueling the spread of HIV.

Objectives

1. To create a platform to help researchers and potential researchers in the different regions of Africa get to know each other and form networks of research and policy collaboration on IDU.
2. To help researchers in different parts of Africa plan and then conduct research needed to understand, and intervene in, the HIV epidemic, drug-related hepatitis and STI epidemics.
3. To enable the establishment of networks that can intervene effectively in public health and drug policy debates.

Speakers

Speakers will include:

• Frank Masao, Muhimbili National Hospital: Treatment and Care for People Who Inject Drugs (PWID): Tanzania Experience
  The experience of introducing Opiod Substitution Therapy (OST) in Tanzania: negotiating with government officials, developing national policy guidelines for harm reduction,  implementing OST and eventually Needle and Syringe Exchange Programmes (NSP).
• Sam Friedman, National Development and Research Institutes: Thoughts on what to do, and what not to do, from international experience
  International Working Group on AIDS among IDU.  The need to avoid criminalization approaches for drug users.
• Carl Hart, Columbia University: Methamphetamine: Tempting hysteria with data
  The presentation will focus on how methamphetamine hysteria has led to bad public policy. A major focus will be on cognitive and brain imaging findings from published reports.
• Abdelwahid Kandil, Association de lutte contre de sida: Survey on violation of drug users’ human rights in Morocco
  The presentation will show how criminalization of drug users in Morocco poses an important obstacle to needle exchange programs implemented by NGOs with the financial support of the GFATM.

Co-Chairs

• Ebrahim Hoosain, Human Sciences Research Council
• Tamas Varga, Global Drug Policy Program, Open Society Foundations

Location

Conference Center Venue 2
Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University
Port Elizabeth, South Africa

For More Information

For more information, please visit the 6th SAHARA conference website.