Basic HTML Version
Monday 26 April 2010 – DAY ONE –
Daily Update
– 3
This year’s conference sees the launch of IHRA’s
The global state of harm reduction 2010
, which
draws together worldwide data and picks up
where
The global status of harm reduction 2008
left off. ‘We’ve been looking at what’s happened in
terms of key interventions for harm reduction
around the world, as well as how many countries
have harm reduction within their national HIV or
drug policies’ says report editor and IHRA senior
analyst Catherine Cook.
Has she been able to determine an overall trend – are things
moving in a positive direction? ‘They’re moving in the right direction
but it’s very slow progress,’ she says. ‘To say a country has needle
and syringe exchange doesn’t necessarily give you an idea of how
many people are being reached. There might be three needle and
syringe exchange programmes serving 20,000 drug users.’
There are now 93 countries and territories around the world that
support harm reduction, 11 more than in 2008. ‘By support harm
reduction we mean they have it in their national policy documents –
that’s 79 countries, eight more than 2008 – or they have key
interventions like needle exchange,’ she says. Eighty-two countries
now have needle exchange, five more than in 2008, while 70
countries have opioid substitution therapy, an increase of seven.
For those in the west, the IHRA conference can be an eye opener
in terms of first person accounts of the savage repression of drug
users. Is this something that many people here are even aware of? ‘I
think probably most people are quite oblivious,’ she says. ‘We have
a real insight because of the people who come and speak at the
conference, and people like Human Rights Watch produce great
reports highlighting these issues, but more needs to done for it to
become something that the wider population really take on board
and start thinking about.’
So compiling the report has led to a sense of – highly – cautious
optimism. ‘There is movement, but it’s way too slow and coverage
is still very, very low – in most countries, not enough to have an
impact on HIV or hepatitis C transmission. One of the things we did
this time was commission people to write on areas of harm
reduction that haven’t been as well documented – hepatitis, TB,
overdose and wider services, which in a sense are even less
healthy than the response to HIV. We don’t know as much about
access, or how many people are affected, because there hasn’t
been the research or the drive we’ve had with the response to HIV,
because that’s where a lot of the money for harm reduction is. If
you’re looking for money to support overdose programmes, it’s a
much more difficult thing.’
Slowmotion
Thriller:
Young people from MD Productions, Liverpool’s award-winning dance and entertainment group, kick off yesterday’s opening
ceremony with an energetic Michael Jackson dance routine.