Harm Reduction in Africa Lanre Onigbogi MD MPH
Harm Reduction in Africa Lanre Onigbogi MD, MPH Department of Community Medicine, University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria
Compendium • Contributory factors to HIV/Hep B disease spread in Sub-saharan Africa. • Need for new and innovative approaches in dealing with emerging problems. • The importance of networking in the development of harm reduction methods. • The Sub-saharan Harm Reduction Network (SAHRN)-prospects and pursuits.
Sub-saharan Africa and new challenges • Longstanding issues that have assisted in fuelling transmission of HIV and Hepatitis infections in Sub-saharan Africa incude: • Alcohol abuse • Tobacco smoking • Non-injecting drug use • Injecting drug use
Sub-saharan Africa and new challenges • Public health systems in Sub-saharan Africa have been burdened by these issues over the past three decades. • They have increased in importance with time. • The renewed emergence can be linked to new technologies boosting illicit drug production and new drug smuggling routes.
Need for harm reduction methods • Recently, there have been reports of increased drug use among African youth. • Adoption of western lifestyles and the erosion of traditional family values in many African countries have been found to be contributory. • This has necessitated the adoption of more practical methods in dealing with the problems of illicit drug use.
Need for harm reduction methods • Many youth, especially those involved with the street are at risk of drug-related harms such as violence, overdose, HIV or Hepatitis B infection. • The majority of these harms can be reduced through focused education, provision of safer means of using drugs during the rehabilitation period and implementation of youth-friendly drug laws.
Need for harm reduction methods • Harm reduction initiatives will be beneficial because Sub-Saharan Africa currently faces the challenge of discouraging the diffusion and spread of injection drug use. • Present laws and methods mainly succeed in driving drug use underground without addressing the harm to individuals and families who are already victims.
Importance of networking • Most Sub-saharan African countries share similar experiences of civil strife, conflicts, lack of economic opportunities and weak governmental institutions. • Many researchers on the continent have worked extensively in other fields that are related to harm reduction. • However, civil society involvement in harm reduction issues have been minimal or nonexistent.
Importance of networking • Networking will help Sub-saharan Africa to develop harm reduction methods that are culturally acceptable and relevant. • It will also mobilize individual, institutional and national interest in the adoption of harm reduction methods. • The harm reduction message on the continent must go beyond rhetoric and tokenism!
Importance of Networking • Collaboration should be between the North and the South as well as between countries in the South. • Collaboration should also involve all interest groups – UN agencies, NGOs, governments, research organizations. • Interest groups and drug user organizations must not be left out.
Importance of networking • Current harm reduction efforts on the continent, where they exist, focus on the direct and the hidden harms associated with the use of illicit substances. • Harm reduction programs must however also focus on commercial sex workers, youths and children on the street/children of the street.
Importance of Networking • There is the need to widen the involvement of the NGO community in the development of the harm reduction agenda. • NGOs have been major catalysts for a lot of recent development in health care in Africa. • There is also a need plan the expansion of harm reduction methods to other components of public health on the continent.
Importance of Networking • Sub-Saharan Africa Harm Reduction Network (SAHRN) provides a great framework for achieving this goal on the African continent. • SAHRN comprises researchers, clinicians and advocates and was inaugurated in October 2007. • If the HR message in Africa will have its desired impact, SAHRN must be nurtured and supported by individual governments and international agencies.
Thank you for listening
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