DA NANG (VNS)— Methadone treatment is seen as an effective method in helping prevent HIV-AIDS in drug addicts, but a major effort was needed to promote it nationwide.
Deputy head of the Central Committee of Communications and Education Truong Minh Tuan said this at a meeting on the subject in central Da Nang City on Wednesday.
“Methadone treatment has achieved good results since the treatment was launched five years ago. It helped greatly reduce the number of drug addicts after 24-months’ treatment,” Tuan said.
“However, the programme has not yet been adopted by all local governments and agencies,” he said, adding that difficulties facing the programme included a lack of co-ordination among localities, a shortage of funding, a stable supply of methadone, competent legal documents and a proficient staff.
Tuan said the meeting aimed to boost deeper participation in the methadone treatment programme by local administrations.
According to the HIV-AIDS Prevention Department under the Ministry of Health, 14,000 drug users have got benefit from methadone treatment programme at 62 clinics nationwide in the last five years.
However, the figure was quite modest when the programme targets treating 80,000 addicts in 30 provinces by 2015.
Head of the Social Affairs Department under the Central Committee of Communications and Education Dao Van Dung said the allocation of local budgets for HIV-AIDS prevention, which includes methadone treatment, varied from place to place.
“For example, some local authorities reserve VND6 billion (US$285,000) for HIV-AIDS prevention programme annually, while others allocate just VND1 billion ($47,500). In fact, northern Bac Can and Lao Cai provinces have not created a fund for the programme,” Dung said.
“Methadone therapy has helped improve addicts’ health and overcome the sharing of needles, which can be infected with HIV/AIDS,” he said.
“Addicts find life easier when they can get free methadone treatment at clinics every day,” he said.
He added that the therapy needed a local source of methadone because the number of patients was expected to rise in coming years.
A report from the HIV-AIDS Prevention Department at the Ministry of Health says that the country has 170,000 addicts under management. — VNS
Đăng ký: VietNam News
