UNAIDS Pacific Advisor Renata Ram believes the intervention of a needle syringe exchange program is one way of dealing with the HIV/AIDS crisis in Fiji.
In an interview with The Fiji Times online portal The Lens@177, she said if implemented in Fiji, the program would be quite successful.
“It may seem like we’re encouraging the behaviour, but there’s a lot that the general public and decision makers need to understand about what exactly a needle and syringe program is,” Ms Ram said.
She said through the needle syringe program, drug users would be able to exchange their dirty needles and syringes for clean ones at a drop-in centre.
“The practice here in Fiji is that there’s a lot of sharing of needles because clean needles and syringes are not readily available.
“The pharmacies here in Fiji are restricting the sale of clean needles and syringes, though it does not clearly say in the law that you need a prescription for it, but this is what is being practised right now, and this is very problematic, because this is causing these infections.
“If you can’t get a clean needle, you have a high dependency on the drug, you don’t have any other mode of support. You want to hit, you share the needle, you get a dirty needle, and you use it.”
Ms Ram said the drop-in centre provided a “controlled environment”.
“It’s an environment where you have other services that can be provided to you, because people share blood as well and may not understand what the consequences of this are.”
She said the key elements of the program are in the outbreak response plan and has shown to work in other countries.
“If this is implemented in Fiji, I feel that this will be successful, and we have the backing of many key people and key ministries as well, so there’s a lot of support for it.
“Given the support and the government leadership, there’s a lot of confidence that this strategy should work.”
She said the needle syringe program was a form of harm reduction in drug users.
“We have to understand that people who are using meth have a very high dependency on this.
“It’s not very easy to be counselled out of it, or just be put into rehab and be told not to take the drugs. It should be seen as a pathway to rehabilitation, because people fall off the wagon as well.”
Ms Ram said the program was quite successful in countries like Australia and New Zealand so “can learn from our neighbours”.
“Australia in the early ’90s had rising HIV epidemic driven by injecting drug users. They’ve introduced these needle syringe program a long time ago, and some of these programs were even led by the churches.
“There was a need to help the communities, because people were dying so these programs have proven to work, and now Australia is almost eliminating HIV in the country because of these very strong programs.”
Ms Ram said dedicated sessions with experts about the needle syringe programs were needed to demonstrate its success.
“I am not an expert in the needle syringe exchange program. We need people to actually talk about the success in their own home country,” she said.
Ms Ram said the program would also work in closed settings such as prisons and there was a need for more sensitivity when addressing the issue because “we’re only using terms and given very short interviews like this to talk about a number of issues”.
