The UNAIDS Executive Director, Michel Sidibé, has taken part in a round-table meeting on demand reduction and health-related measures at the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on the World Drug Problem, taking place in New York, United States of America, from 19 to 21 April.
Mr Sidibé said that after 40 years of a repressive response towards people who use drugs it is time to transition towards a more comprehensive health- and human rights-based approach. He added that the world is failing to protect the health and human rights of people who use drugs.
Referring to a new UNAIDS report, Do no harm: health, human rights and people who use drugs, he pointed out that the world had missed the United Nations General Assembly’s target set in 2011 to reduce HIV transmission among people who inject drugs by 50% by 2015.
Mr Sidibé noted that insufficient coverage of harm reduction programmes and policies that criminalize and marginalize people who inject drugs are failing to reduce new HIV infections. He stressed that a more pragmatic approach was necessary, because the world would never be free from drugs.
Other speakers at the round-table meeting included Svatopluk Němeček, the Czech Republic’s Minister of Health, Bernt Hoie, Norway’s Minister of Health and Care Services, K. Shanmugham, Singapore’s Minister for Home Affairs and Law, and Lamine Touré, of the Senegalese nongovernmental organization Sopi Jikko.
Most speakers backed Mr Sidibé’s call for more harm reduction coverage for people who use drugs, although Mr Shanmugham said law enforcement approaches had worked to deter drug use in Singapore. He said he was impressed by harm reduction programmes offered by countries such as the Czech Republic and Norway, but that much depended on the cultural context.
Mr Němeček said the Czech Republic had achieved better health outcomes by decriminalizing drug use and increasing harm reduction coverage and voluntary programmes to treat drug dependence.
