The Hindu : International : U.S. opposes needle exchange plan

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 29, 2005

International

International

U.S. opposes needle exchange plan

Sarah Boseley

Fight against HIV could be "jeopardised"

LONDON: The U.S. is pressing the U.N. to block the use of needle exchange programmes in countries where drug use is driving the spread of AIDS, arguing that the schemes encourage users to continue their habit.

But critics, including Britain, believe that the fight against AIDS in eastern Europe, central Asia and other parts of the world could be jeopardised if the U.S. manages to water down the U.N.'s policy.

The board of UNAIDS, the U.N. agency which coordinates the fight against the pandemic, is formulating a global prevention strategy in Geneva.

But the board may be forced for the first time to a vote on the issue. Britain opposed the U.S. position on Monday, when Gareth Thomas, the U.K. International Development Minister, told the meeting in his opening statement that the U.K. wants to see ``efforts to intensify harm reduction strategies, including needle and syringe exchange programmes.''

The U.K., he said, had ``a different approach'' from the U.S.

The row is critical, because needle sharing by injecting drug users is the main cause of the soaring figures for HIV/AIDS infection in many countries, and provides a gateway for the spread of infection into the heterosexual community through the partners of drug users.

Drug injecting is responsible for 80 per cent of the cases in eastern Europe and central Asia, and is also driving the epidemic in a wide range of countries in West Asia, north Africa, south and south-east Asia and Latin America. HIV prevalence within certain populations of drug injectors exceeds 80 per cent.

Europe accepts evidence from studies which have shown needle exchanges to curb the spread of infection, but the U.S., which will not fund such studies domestically, does not.

The issue has already become fraught. At a meeting in Vienna earlier this year the U.N. agency responsible for the policing of narcotics, the United Nations office on drugs and crime, was forced to accept the U.S. line and oppose needle exchanges.

Democrats are lobbying against the Government's position. —

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