In this blog, Adebisi Yusuff Adebayo takes a critical look at the implementation of harm reduction measures to address the health risks related to injection drug use in Nigeria.

Despite the fact that there are numerous strong global proofs that support harm reduction strategies^1,2, the coverage, adoption and implementation for people who inject drugs (PWID) is poor and Nigeria is not an exception to this. PWID constitute a considerable quota of people at-risk in Nigeria and 20% of people who use drugs are injecting drugs³. It has been reported that the most common drugs injected were pharmaceutical opioids, followed by cocaine and heroin. In Nigeria, the level of risky injecting practices and risky sexual behaviors among PWID is worrisome³. Particularly, women who inject drugs are more prone to engage in high-risk sexual behaviors compared to the male counterpart which further catalyze their risk of acquiring and transmitting HIV among other infections. This problem is doubly compounded by the criminalization of drug use and the non-adoption of evidence-based harm reduction strategies in the country. Continue reading →

1. Degenhardt, L., Mathers, B., Vickerman, P., Rhodes, T., Latkin, C., & Hickman, M. (2010). Prevention of HIV infection for people who inject drugs: Why individual, structural and combination approaches are needed. Lancet; 376:285–301. [↩]
2. MacArthur, G., Minozzi, S., Martin, N., Vickerman, P., Deren, S., Bruneau, J., et al. (2012). Opiate substitution treatment and HIV transmission in people who inject drugs: Systematic review and meta-analysis. British Medical Journal; 345:e5945. [↩]
3. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2018). Drug use in Nigeria 2018. Available from http://www.unodc.org/documents/nigeria//Drug_Use_Survey_Nigeria_2019_BOOK.pdf. Accessed: 10/08/2019 [↩]