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Latin America Tender Awarded to Intercambios Association Civil
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In July 2007, IHRA released an invitation to tender for harm reduction networks, associations and organisations in Latin America to work as partners on HR2 - IHRA’s new programme of research and advocacy on harm reduction and human rights. IHRA would like to thank all the organisations that applied for this tender. The level of response was very good, with many strong applications submitted.
We are pleased to announce that the tender has been awarded to Intercambios Associatión Civil.
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‘Intercambios’ is an Argentinean non-governmental organisation with extensive experience in harm reduction research and advocacy in the region. Based in Buenos Aires, Intercambios was founded in 1995 by a group of professionals with wide-ranging interests in the fields of drug-related issues and HIV/AIDS.
‘Intercambios’ will join the Asian Harm Reduction Network (AHRN), the Caribbean Harm Reduction Coalition (CHRC), the Central and Eastern European Harm Reduction Network (CEEHRN) and the International Network of People who Use Drugs (INPUD) in collaborating with IHRA on the new global harm reduction research and advocacy project. The aim of the HR2 project (which is funded by the UK Department for International Development is to monitor and evaluate the major multilateral agencies (such as the United Nations) in terms of their harm reduction policies, support, funding and performance. This will allow IHRA and the regional partners to enhance advocacy efforts and to work towards the development of a “conducive environment for harm reduction”.
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Click here to view the original ‘Invitation to Tender for Harm Reduction Organisations in Latin America
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Click here to contact Pablo Cymerman at Intercambios Associatión Civil
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Special Journal Issue Free to Download
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The International Journal of Drug Policy has just published a ‘Special Issue’ on HIV treatment and care for injecting drug users. This issue (Volume 18, Issue 4) has been guest edited by Andrew Ball from the World Health Organization, Michel Kazatchkine from the Global Fund, and Tim Rhodes from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The complete issue is available for free download until October 31 2007.
This ‘Special Issue’ brings together a range of original research papers and commentaries from around the world. It has been driven by recent global evidence and discussion relating to antiretroviral treatment access, adherence, scale-up and integration with drug dependence treatment, and other healthcare services. In the editorial the guest editors reiterate the goal of universal access to antiretroviral treatment for injecting drug users, and describe the challenges that remain.
Highlights include a compelling policy analysis by Laurie Sylla and colleagues on why HIV, tuberculosis and drug treatment services should be located together in order to best serve drug users. This is supported by a review from Bruno Spire and colleagues on HIV treatment adherence among injecting drug users, and also by an evidence-based commentary from France Lert and Michel Kazatchkine on the large-scale implementation of both HIV and drug dependence treatments.
There are also a number of key papers on antiretroviral treatment for injecting drug users, including a commentary on the existing structural impediments in the former Soviet Union and Asia (Daniel Wolfe), a paper on the barriers and obstacles in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (Natalia Bobova et al), a report on the significant regional or national differences in antiretroviral treatment access in Europe (Martin Donoghoe et al), and a paper on Canadian attempts to improve treatment adherence (Mark Tyndall et al). There are additional reports from France, India, Ukraine and Australia.
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 Click here to view the promotional flyer for this ‘Special Issue’ [PDF:769KB]
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Click here for free access to ‘Special Issue’ (until the end of October 2007)
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An Interview with the ‘Nigerian Friends for Harm Reduction’
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The ‘Nigerian Friends for Harm Reduction’ (NFHR) have recently formed to advocate for harm reduction interventions and policies across the country. Dr Olanrewaju Onigbogi, a leading harm reduction pioneer in Nigeria, discusses how and why the group have formed and what they hope to achieve.
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How did the idea for the NFHR develop?
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Some of the most important early pioneers of the harm reduction movement in Africa met together at the International Conference on Alcohol and Harm Reduction in Cape Town in October 2006. NFHR started talking about coordinating our efforts and eventually a few of us met in February 2007. This initial meeting involved my colleagues from the Department of Community Health and the Department of Psychiatry at the University College Hospital, Ibadan.
At the 18th International Conference on the Reduction of Drug Related Harm Dr Olanrewaju Onigbogi had the opportunity to see Dr Moruf Adelekan present. Dr Moruf Adelekan is one of the key advocates for harm reduction in Africa, and Dr Olanrewaju Onigbogi was able to benefit from his wealth of experience. I immediately saw the need to build a national coalition to match those from other countries with more developed harm reduction programmes.
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Who is in the NFHR?
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NFHR began with public health experts, psychiatrists and harm reduction advocates - mainly from Ibadan, Lagos and Ilorin (three cities in Nigeria with teaching hospitals and an abundance of researchers working with HIV/AIDS, alcohol and tobacco). The leadership structure consists of a National Coordinator (Dr Olanrewaju Onigbogi) and a General Secretary (Dr Victor Makanjuola), with additional coordinators in the 3 centres where we presently operate. There is currently a Nigerian youth organisation called ‘The Critical Peers’ which is leading on the coalition’s youth angle.
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What does the NFHR see as the main issues or problems in Nigeria?
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At the moment, the main problem with harm reduction in Nigeria is the fact that the main policy makers seem to have problems accepting harm reduction approaches like substitution therapy and needle exchange. In addition, harm reduction is regarded as a narrow approach for intravenous drug use only. Whereas it needs to be sold as a broader concept for researchers, policy-makers and advocates. We intend to start with less contentious issues and build a research and database from which we can develop our advocacy for harm reduction methods.
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What does the NFHR hope to achieve?
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NFHR aims to build a national coalition for harm reduction and a platform for information exchange, ideas and discussions about the way forward for harm reduction in Nigeria. The long-term goal of the NFHR is to promote and develop a comprehensive harm reduction approach to issues of public health importance in Nigeria.
In the short-term, with the support of IHRA, NFHR have written to the Director General of the National AIDS Control Agency (NACA) to try and get them to explicitly adopt harm reduction principles and to put harm reduction into their next National Strategic Framework for AIDS Control in 2009.
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Click here to view the NFHR letter to the National AIDS Control Agency [PDF:66KB]
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Click here to contact the Nigerian Friends for Harm Reduction
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‘ARV 4 IDUs’: Free Quarterly Bulletin Launched
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HIV i-Base – a treatment activist group for healthcare professionals and people living with HIV/AIDS - are pleased to announce the launch of a free quarterly bulletin called ‘ARV4IDUs’. This not-for-profit community publication aims to provide a review of the most important medical advances relating to clinical management of HIV and its related conditions for injecting drug users.
The publication contains key articles relating to antiretroviral treatment for injecting drug users (reproduced from other respected sources with permission), and comments from the editorial team, consultant contributors or readers. There are also several articles and reports from the i-Base team of writers and contributors, including a report in the first issue from IHRA’s 18th International Conference on the Reduction of Drug Related Harm (May 2007: Warsaw, Poland).
This free publication has been made possible by unconditional educational grants to HIV i-Base from charitable trusts, individual donors and pharmaceutical companies. All of the content and editorial comments are independent of the funding sources. A Russian version will also be available online in the near future.
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Click here to view ARV4IDUs Volume 1 Issue 1 [PDF:353KB]
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Click here to subscribe for this free bulletin
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September 2007 Article of the Month
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Kayser B, Mauron A & Miah A (2007) Current Anti-Doping Policy: A Critical Appraisal. BMC Medical Ethics, 8(2).
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This debate article questions the ethical assumptions which are the basis of the global prohibition of performance-enhancing drugs in sport. According to the authors, the prohibitionist approaches are based on ideals of sport as a “level playing field” – which, in reality, it has probably never been and certainly is not today. The authors also examine the desirability and effectiveness of the enforcement of this prohibitionist approach through increased drug testing in sport.
In this article, the authors point out that the cost of anti-doping testing regimes for elite athletes is rising steeply. In addition, there are also unintended negative public health consequences of this regime, including a lack of resources and information for the general public (where medically unsupervised and potentially more dangerous practices in amateur sport are becoming increasingly prevalent). In addition, such a regime simply acts to drive the taking of performance-enhancing drugs further underground and towards the use of untried but undetectable drugs and other dangerous practices. In this way, the harms associated with the prohibition of performance-enhancing drugs in sport mirror those associated with prohibitionist drug policies in society as a whole.
The authors then consider the ethical implications of this for the medical profession, and they propose that anti-doping agencies in sport should stop trying to attain “an unattainable goal” and focus on the harm which is being done to athletes - thus promoting a harm reduction approach.
This article is one of the most important examinations of this commonly neglected issue to be published for a long time. Anti-doping in sport is often ignored in debates and discussions by the harm reduction and drug policy reform fields. In fact, there are many people within these fields who do not regard this as an issue - arguing that ‘sport is different’ and that harm reduction measures cannot be applied to it. However, it is very much a harm reduction issue which shares so many similarities with the problems caused by drugs and alcohol in society and with the futile attempts to solve them through prohibition, law enforcement, testing and propaganda. The reported increase in anabolic steroid users accessing UK needle exchanges clearly shows how these issues overlap.
Today the war on doping has become a moral crusade which potentially induces more harm than it prevents. The recent advent of steroid clinics in the UK and Australia where harm reduction strategies are used is perhaps pointing the way towards a more pragmatic approach.
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Patrick O’Hare, IHRA Honorary President
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Click here to view the article
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IHRA Submission to UK Government Consultation
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The UK Government’s Department for International Development (DFID) has recently completed a broad consultation process for an updated strategy to address HIV in the developing world. As a major recipient of DFID funding for the HR2 programme of work, IHRA has made a submission into this process.
In 2004, the UK Government published ‘Taking Action’ – the first co-ordinated strategy for tackling HIV in the developing world which included targeted funding. However, the ‘Taking Action’ strategy is due to end in March 2008 and the UK Government is now updating its strategy in light of the developments in this field in the last three years. As part of this process, DFID commissioned the UK Consortium on AIDS to accept and co-ordinate submissions from around the world on a series of issues that will inform its updated priorities and funding areas. IHRA was invited to participate in this consultation, and has made a submission after consulting with key harm reduction networks. The submission outlines the organisation’s input under each of the category headings identified in the DFID consultation framework.
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Click here to view the IHRA Submission [PDF:113KB]
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Click here to view the UK Government’s 2004 ‘Taking Action’ Strategy [PDF:1.32MB]
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IJDP - Call for ‘Risk Environment’ Papers
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The International Journal of Drug Policy – IHRA’s official journal – is planning a special issue in the near future on the subject of “drug use harms and the risk environment”. This issue aims to showcase theoretical and empirical papers which explore the social and structural harms that are associated with settings for drug and alcohol use. The issue will also examine the role of structural interventions within the harm reduction approach.
If you would like to contribute to this special issue, please send an abstract (of no more than 200 words) to Rachael Parker from the Public & Environmental Health Research Unit at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Input is invited for the following types of article (please state which you are interested in when emailing your abstract):
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- Editorials (max 2,000 words)
- Commentaries (max 4,000 words)
- Systematic or Narrative Reviews (max 6,000 words)
- Research and Original Papers (between 3,500 and 6,000 words)
- Policy Analysis (max 5,000 words)
- Historical analysis (max 5,000 words)
- Short Reports or Research Notes (max 2,750 words)
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In particular, the IJDP would be especially interested in submissions regarding the following topics:
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- Theories of ‘risk environment’ and the social-structural production of drug-related harm
- Social change and structural interventions for harm reduction
- Developments in the social epidemiology of drug-related harm
- The social environment, especially structural and symbolic violence
- The material and economic environment
- The policy, legal and political environment
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This special issue will aim to balance its content in relation to forms of drug use, discipline, methodological approach and research setting. The editorial team are seeking at least one systematic or narrative review paper, and also wish to maximise the content of the issue in relation to papers drawing on empirical analyses.
The deadline for the submission of abstracts is 30 October 2007. Authors will be notified on decisions relating to abstracts by 15 November 2007 and the full papers will need to be submitted online by 1 April 2008. The special issue will be published in early 2009.
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Click here to find out more about the International Journal of Drug Policy
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Click here to view the call for papers [PDF:176KB]
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