Report on people who inject drugs in the South-East Asia Region
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WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia
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Description: Over 500?000 people inject drugs in South-East Asia. Many are involved in high-risk injecting behaviour, and this has contributed towards the overall HIV epidemic in several countries of the Region. People who inject drugs have some of the highest rates of HIV prevalence among any of the high-risk population groups in the Region. The focus of this document is on countries with a high and medium burden of illicit drug injecting. In most of these countries, people who inject drugs are either HIV infected or have the potential for being infected. The countries reviewed are Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal and Thailand. National responses to reduce the HIV prevalence among people who inject drugs vary. Some countries offer both needle and syringe programmes and opioid substitution therapy, which are critically important harm reduction interventions. Despite the fact that most countries have harm reduction interventions in place, current data show that such measures have a limited reach and are not sufficiently scaled up to match the size of the problem. This report provides the latest information on people who inject drugs, the associated links with the HIV epidemic and the national responses. It highlights the need to advocate for greater efforts and resources to be channelled into harm reduction interventions in the South-East Asia Region. "