HARM REDUCTION AND FUNDING SHIFTS
New ceiling on the Global Fund grants means harm reduction has to come along with other interventions. Funding to middle-income countries has been reduced but that is where majority of PWUDs live. 99% of PWUDs live in middle-income countries, which are among the 15 priority countries identified by UNAIDS, with only 1% of them living in low-income countries. "Funding gap in harm reduction is at 93%," said Oanh. "The excuse is always that there is not enough money but how come there is never shortage of money to do drug control?"
Australia, where Oanh was speaking at AIDS 2014, has been a good example to support harm-reduction initiatives for PWUDs, which have had profound public-health impact. Australian Deputy High Commissioner to India, Bernard Philip, said to Citizen News Service (CNS): "Australia works with governments in our region to implement proven, cost-effective interventions which respond to the particular needs of countries. This includes advocacy for evidence-based programs targeted at key populations, including people who use injecting drugs. In many countries Australia has supported harm reduction: needle and syringe programs (NSP); methadone-maintenance therapy (MMT); care support and treatment for people who inject drugs. These have been successful in increasing safe behaviours and averting HIV infections. In Indonesia in 2011, 87 percent of people who inject drugs reported using sterile equipment. The decrease in sharing is likely to have contributed to declines in HIV infection rates in this population from 52.4 per cent in 2007 to 42.4 per cent in 2011. In Vietnam close to 60 per cent of PWID have access to harm-reduction services."
Philip added: "These harm-reduction interventions are increasingly being integrated within national health programmes and funded by the government. For example, in Indonesia 83 MMT clinics are now run and funded by government of Indonesia as part of the health system. In future, all harm-reduction initiatives in Indonesia will be fully integrated within the health services.
The preventing HIV transmission in drug users program (2007 to 2015, $9.7 million), a regional program that includes India and to which Australia has contributed, is fostering regional cooperation for mainstreaming HIV/AIDS concerns into drug demand-reduction programs. The program has been instrumental in integrating critical HIV prevention and care services into governments' own national domestically funded programs. For example, Bhutan has scaled up drug treatment-services including six new centres bringing the total to nine the total number of government-supported centres along with two (one male and one female) residential-treatment centres. In India, the Australian government supports harm-reduction measures -- such as opioid-substitution therapy, and programs helping female partners of drug users -- by funding community mobilisation efforts, and by building the capacity of local partners."
Oanh ended her plenary with a remark that perhaps sends a strong message for supportive policy and legal framework for health and rights: "I put on hold my medical practice for policy advocacy. Doctors save lives one at a time. Bad policies kills at a massive scale. Good policies save lives."
Hoping that harm reduction, hepatitis C prevention and treatment, TB prevention and treatment, drug-overdose management will become a reality for every PWUD in the world. The message about funding is clear: invest where the need is prime.
Shobha Shukla, CNS
(The author is the Managing Editor of CNS. She is reporting from the XX International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2014) with support from the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Tuberculosis Programme. She is a J2J Fellow of National Press Foundation (NPF) USA and received her editing training in Singapore. She has earlier worked with State Planning Institute, UP and taught physics at India's prestigious Loreto Convent. She also co-authored and edited publications on gender justice, childhood TB, childhood pneumonia, Hepatitis C Virus and HIV, and MDR-TB. Email: shobha@citizen-news.org, website: www.citizen-news.org)
- Shared under Creative Commons (CC) Attribution License
New ceiling on the Global Fund grants means harm reduction has to come along with other interventions. Funding to middle-income countries has been reduced but that is where majority of PWUDs live. 99% of PWUDs live in middle-income countries, which are among the 15 priority countries identified by UNAIDS, with only 1% of them living in low-income countries. "Funding gap in harm reduction is at 93%," said Oanh. "The excuse is always that there is not enough money but how come there is never shortage of money to do drug control?"
Australia, where Oanh was speaking at AIDS 2014, has been a good example to support harm-reduction initiatives for PWUDs, which have had profound public-health impact. Australian Deputy High Commissioner to India, Bernard Philip, said to Citizen News Service (CNS): "Australia works with governments in our region to implement proven, cost-effective interventions which respond to the particular needs of countries. This includes advocacy for evidence-based programs targeted at key populations, including people who use injecting drugs. In many countries Australia has supported harm reduction: needle and syringe programs (NSP); methadone-maintenance therapy (MMT); care support and treatment for people who inject drugs. These have been successful in increasing safe behaviours and averting HIV infections. In Indonesia in 2011, 87 percent of people who inject drugs reported using sterile equipment. The decrease in sharing is likely to have contributed to declines in HIV infection rates in this population from 52.4 per cent in 2007 to 42.4 per cent in 2011. In Vietnam close to 60 per cent of PWID have access to harm-reduction services."
Philip added: "These harm-reduction interventions are increasingly being integrated within national health programmes and funded by the government. For example, in Indonesia 83 MMT clinics are now run and funded by government of Indonesia as part of the health system. In future, all harm-reduction initiatives in Indonesia will be fully integrated within the health services.
The preventing HIV transmission in drug users program (2007 to 2015, $9.7 million), a regional program that includes India and to which Australia has contributed, is fostering regional cooperation for mainstreaming HIV/AIDS concerns into drug demand-reduction programs. The program has been instrumental in integrating critical HIV prevention and care services into governments' own national domestically funded programs. For example, Bhutan has scaled up drug treatment-services including six new centres bringing the total to nine the total number of government-supported centres along with two (one male and one female) residential-treatment centres. In India, the Australian government supports harm-reduction measures -- such as opioid-substitution therapy, and programs helping female partners of drug users -- by funding community mobilisation efforts, and by building the capacity of local partners."
Hoping that harm reduction, hepatitis C prevention and treatment, TB prevention and treatment, drug-overdose management will become a reality for every PWUD in the world. The message about funding is clear: invest where the need is prime.
Shobha Shukla, CNS
(The author is the Managing Editor of CNS. She is reporting from the XX International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2014) with support from the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Tuberculosis Programme. She is a J2J Fellow of National Press Foundation (NPF) USA and received her editing training in Singapore. She has earlier worked with State Planning Institute, UP and taught physics at India's prestigious Loreto Convent. She also co-authored and edited publications on gender justice, childhood TB, childhood pneumonia, Hepatitis C Virus and HIV, and MDR-TB. Email: shobha@citizen-news.org, website: www.citizen-news.org)
- Shared under Creative Commons (CC) Attribution License
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