Training Programme on HIV Prevention Among Injecting Drug Users (IDUs)

Duration
August 2004 – August 2006

Donors
The programme is being implemented as part of the GLOBUS Project with the financial support of The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Partners
The Russian Harm Reduction Network, The Russian Ministry of Health and Social Development, The Scientific Research Institute of Narcology, the charitable foundation ‘Kolodets’, the regional social organisation ‘Network of People Living With HIV/AIDS’, UNAIDS, The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and The Open Health Institute (OHI)

Regions
Vologda, Nizhny Novgorod, Orenburg, Pskov, Tver, Tomsk regions, Republic of Buryatia, Republic of Tatarstan, Krasnoyarskiy Krai, St. Petersburg

Background Information

At the end of the 1990s, when HIV began spreading rapidly in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, IDUs made up the majority of newly registered HIV cases. Therefore, a comprehensive response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic would not be possible without strategies to prevent the spread of HIV among IDUs. The harm reduction approach sets realistic, short-term objectives aimed at drug-related harm reduction and envisages the implementation of programmes such as outreach; providing drug users with counselling and referrals to specialists; syringe exchanges; and setting up drop-in centres. Such programmes have proved effective (both in and outside of this region) in reducing the spread of HIV infection and in establishing contacts with this particularly hard-to-access portion of the population.

According to UNAIDS and the Federal AIDS Centre, in 2003, outreach work and syringe exchanges covered less than 5% of IDUs in the regions of the GLOBUS Project. The goal is to increase programme coverage to 45% by the end of the second year of the project.

Overall Objectives

1.  Expand the capacity of the three training centres that provide educational and technical support to harm reduction projects.
2.  Set up and support a Russian Harm Reduction Network.
3.  Provide technical support and training for the staff from regional harm reduction projects.

Target Audience

Staff from regional harm reduction projects/training centres, policy-making officials, and health specialists