REQUEST FROM Reference Group to the UN on HIV and IDU

WWW.INPUD.ORG

Reference Group to the UN on HIV and IDU

We are looking for data from around the world on the number of injecting drug users and HIV prevalence among IDUs.


Do you have data from your country?

The Reference Group to the United Nations on HIV and injecting drug useadvises UNODC, UNAIDS and WHO on injecting drug use and on effective approaches to HIV prevention and care for IDUs to help guide strategies for scaling up these activities.
See www.idurefgroup.unsw.edu.au for more information about the work of the Reference Group, the international experts who currently make up the group and the Secretariat which is currently based at the National Drug and Alcohol Centre in Australia.

One of our major activities is to report on the global extent of IDU and HIV.

We are in the process of updating estimates for every country around the world on:
1. the number of people who inject drugs in each country
2. the prevalence of HIV among these injecting drug users

Many of you may be familiar with the estimates that were released several years ago by the previous Reference Group.

Producing these estimates is difficult because in many countries there are no data measuring the extent of injecting drug use or HIV among injecting drug users. In other countries data may exist, but are not widely available.

So far we have conducted a very large search of the peer-reviewed literature and have tried to gather as much greyliterature (such as NGO and government reports) as possible. However we know that there will be some material that our search would have missed.

Below is a list of countries that we do not currently have sufficient data on. This lack of data means we will be unable to make direct estimates on the size of the IDU population or the prevalence of HIV among IDUs for these countries.

Do you have any information on these countries that may be of use to us?

Any assistance you are able to provide will be acknowledged in the reports of the Reference Group. We have only a limited amount of time in which to complete this work. Because of this we will only be able consider material that is sent to us before Friday 15 February 2008

More data is needed for the following countries:
Eastern Europe and Central Asia:
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Lithuania

South Asia:
Bhutan, Maldives, Sri Lanka

East and South East Asia
Brunei Darussalam, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Japan, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Mongolia, Republic of Korea, Singapore, The Taiwan Provence of China, Timor Leste

Caribbean
Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent & Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago

South America
Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela

Oceania and the Pacific
American Samoa, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, French Polynesia, Guam, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Caledonia, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu

Western Europe
Albania, Andorra, Belgium, Iceland, Italy, Finland, France, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Montenegro, San Marino, Serbia, Spain, Switzerland, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

Middle East and North Africa
Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Morocco, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Yemen

Sub-Saharan Africa
Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Swaziland, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe


If you have any information you can share with us or you have any further questions please send an email to:
IDUreferencegroup@med.unsw.edu.au

We would greatly appreciate any help you can offer us.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

Benjamin.

Benjamin Phillips
Research Officer, Secretariat of the Reference Group to the UN on HIV and IDU
National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre
University of New South Wales
Sydney, Australia

Ph: 9385 0264 (direct)
Ph: 9385 0333 (switch)
Fax: 9385 0222
Web: http://ndarc.med.unsw.edu.au

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5 INPUD candidates for EATG-CEEHRN HIV-HCV work shop

Written by HaRdCOREhARMREdUCER

Paul, Bijay, Masia

Dear friends,

5 INPUD Activists have send in their candidacy to represent INPUD in a HIV-HCV experts work shop organized by the European Aids Treatment Group and the Central And Eastern European Harm Reduction Network. This are the 5 candidates:

Vitomir Georgievski (Macedonia)

Rajesh Khongbantabam (India)

Jason Farell (USA)

Milena Naydenova (Bulgaria)

Nuno Fernades (Portugal)

To avoid a conflict of interest concerning Milena and I being together and living together from half of August on I asked the board of INPUD to select the best candidate. I've send them the candidates application letters and cv for review.

On Tuesday I'll release the name of the INPUD Activist who'll represent the network in the HIV-HCV experts workshop.

That's all for now,

Stijn Goossens

www.INPUD.org

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