Author Archives: James

WHO on Hep B and C

The World Health Organization (WHO) has identified four key actions countries can take to prevent viral hepatitis B and C among people who inject drugs.  Of the estimated 16 million people who inject drugs worldwide, it is estimated that 10 million are infected with hepatitis C. An additional 1.2 million are infected with hepatitis B.

Risk from shared syringes and needles

Many drug users are unable to obtain sterile syringes: in some countries it is illegal to distribute or possess syringes for non-medical purposes. The risk of contracting hepatitis and HIV infection occurs when people share syringes and needles. Used injection equipment retains traces of blood. If that blood contains HIV, hepatitis or another type of virus, the next person using the syringe could be infected.

Reducing the risk of HIV and hepatitis infections

A number of countries have established programmes to reduce HIV infections among people who inject drugs.

“Most of the interventions that prevent HIV transmission between people who inject drugs are virtually the same as those for preventing viral hepatitis B and C,” says Dr Gottfried Hirnschall, Director of the WHO Department for HIV/AIDS. “So it makes sense to reduce the risk of both infections by linking viral hepatitis prevention with HIV prevention, care and treatment.”

Hepatitis is an inflammation of the liver. Together, hepatitis B and C are the most common cause of cirrhosis and cancer of the liver. Viral hepatitis progresses faster among people living with HIV because their immune systems are weaker, and causes more severe liver-related health problems than it does among people without HIV infection.

WHO recommendations

WHO recommends:

  • Implementing and scaling up HIV prevention programmes such as clean needle and syringe programmes and opioid substitution therapy (treatment of opioid dependence with methadone or buprenophine).
  • Offering people who inject drugs the rapid hepatitis B vaccination regimen (completed in 3 weeks instead of 6 months), along with incentives to increase uptake and completion of the vaccine schedule. More than 175 countries now include a cheap, safe and effective vaccine against hepatitis B in their national infant immunization schedules.  WHO has already recommended countries provide catch-up vaccination for people at increased risk of hepatitis infection, including injection drug users, but this does still not occur systematically at present. There is no vaccine against hepatitis C.
  • Using “low dead space” syringes that retain less  blood after use reduces the survival of HIV and hepatitis C in the blood that remains in the syringe. This  potentially reduces the risk of transmission if injecting equipment is shared.
  • Involving drug users in hepatitis prevention programmes to maximize their impact.

Public health approach

“Countries that have adopted a public health approach to injecting drug use and HIV have been the most successful in turning round their HIV epidemics. We need to do the same for hepatitis,” says Dr Ying-Ru Lo of the HIV Department at WHO.

The new evidence-based guidelines are designed for use by national public health officials, managers of HIV, drug dependence and harm reduction programmes, civil society and health workers in low- and middle-income countries. They are intended to be tailored and implemented according to local situations and needs.

Notes to editors:

The XIX International AIDS Conference is taking place in Washington D.C. 22-27 July 2012. The theme of the conference is “Turning the Tide Together”. WHO is presenting proposals to accelerate the end  of HIV transmission. This includes a discussion paper on strategic use of antiretrovirals (ARVs), a global report on drug resistance, guidance on the prevention and treatment of HIV and STIs among sex workers, and guidance on the use of ARVs as Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) among people at particularly high risk of HIV.

Full guideline document on the prevention of viral hepatitis B and C and HIV among people who inject drugs is available at: http://www.who.int/hiv/pub/guidelines/hepatitis/en/

And more information on HIV in people who inject drugs and harm reduction at
http://www.who.int/hiv/topics/idu/en/index.html

New Aboriginal Health AOD Resources

The Our Healing Ways project launched 3 key resources yesterday at the Minajalku Healing Centre, Thornbury.

Coordinated by Katherine Bakos, Our Healing Ways was a project of the Victorian Dual Diagnosis Initiative. The project was supported by VACCHO ,VAHS and Ngwala Willumbong State-wide Aboriginal Drug and Alcohol Service.

The Our Healing Ways project aimed to:

  • discover what skilled, experienced Aboriginal workers do to support the healing of people with both mental health and drug and alcohol issues
  • develop culturally appropriate resources that are based on the experiences, successful strategies, processes, skills and qualities of Aboriginal workers

 

Healing Ways Project outcomes included the development of three resources:

  1. Our Healing Ways manual: Putting wisdom into practice

This manual explores working with co-existing mental health and drug and alcohol issues from an Aboriginal best practice perspective. The manual takes into account the complexities involved with working with community – often with dual relationships with clients. It is a celebration and validation of the enormous skill set required for this work.

 

  1. A resource book for Aboriginal Workers on the relationship between alcohol and drugs and mental health

This resource includes background information, holistic assessment, setting up a recovery plan together, stages of change, interventions, resources and services.

 

  1. Supervision: A culturally appropriate model for Aboriginal workers  

This model has been developed to help meet the need for culturally appropriate supervision models for workers. It has been based on the needs of the Aboriginal AOD, Mental Health and SEWB workforce and recognises that people are working

 

All resources are downloadable from the Dual Diagnosis Australia & New Zealand website (http://www.dualdiagnosis.org.au/home/)

Jobs: Dual Diagnosis Clinician, Victoria

Want to be part of a cutting edge service to improve the lives of young people with a Dual Disorder & their Family.

DUAL DIAGNOSES FAMILY CLINICIAN

Full-Time Position

Salary range $58K to $64K negotiable depending on qualifications, skills and experience, plus superannuation and attractive salary packaging.

The Family Eclipse Program is an innovative service working with individuals (16-24 years) who have a co-occurring mental health and alcohol and other drug disorder and their families.

The successful applicant will ideally possess all following requirements. However, understanding this is a new area of expertise, those possessing experience in one or more of the following areas will be considered: mental health, AOD treatment; family work.

 

The Family Eclipse Program was first funded as an innovative response to youth mental health concerns in 2007 and has received continued funding since.  The program uses family based interventions to enhance current treatment of an individual’s dual disorder.   The aim is to increase positive outcomes for the whole family inclusive of the person with the dual disorder and includes psycho-education and symptom management strategies. Interventions will aim to reduce stress, improve family communication and problem solving skills and to generally reduce the negative influence of mental health and drug abuse on individual and family life. An outcome evaluation aims to provide valuable results of the program’s success.

 

Odyssey House Victoria is the lead agency for this project in partnership with Interact Australia and Task Force Inc.  This is a full-time position until June 2014. An extension beyond this is subject to the project funding being continued.

For further information please contact Miranda Manning Programs Manager, Odyssey Community Services on (03) 9420 7610.

Our approach to recruitment is based on flexibility and creating opportunities in which staff can develop

Applications close:  Monday 6th August 10am.

Position descriptions are available on http://www.odyssey.org.au/jobs/

If this position appeals to you please apply online by uploading a copy of your CV and application letter C/O The Program Manager: Odyssey Community Services.

For further details about Odyssey House Victoria follow the link: www.odyssey.org.au

Cannabis Conference 2012

Via http://ncpic.org.au:

To register and for more information please click here.

This is the second National Cannabis Conference, following the inaugural conference in Sydney in 2009.

Special announcement:

Scholarships to attend conference for Queensland-based workers

Dovetail is proud to support NCPIC and workers from Queensland-based youth and AOD organisations by offering 5 free Cannabis Conference Scholarship packages. Click here for details.

Conference information:

The topic areas have been chosen to respond to the developing evidence-base on issues such as cannabis and mental health. The emerging areas to be featured will include:

  • cannabis use and intervention approaches among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities;
  • school based approaches to preventing and reducing cannabis use;
  • the role of genetics in cannabis use and dependence;
  • the relationship between cannabis and tobacco;
  • synthetic cannabinoids; and
  • promising approaches to cannabis and comorbid mental health conditions.

The conference will include perspectives from health, education, youth services and criminal justice sectors.

There will be workshops on Wednesday followed by the 2-day conference on Thursday and Friday which mixes national and international keynote speakers, free papers, “datablitz”, posters, and social and networking opportunities.

The conference will be held at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre.

We look forward to welcoming you to Brisbane!

When
  • 9AM-5PM Wednesday, 19th September 2012, Workshops/Symposia
  • 9AM-5PM Thursday, 20th September 2012
  • 9AM-5PM Friday, 21st September 2012
Where

Map of conference location

Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre
Grey Street
Brisbane, Queensland
Australia

View conference location on Google Maps

Prisoner Health Symposium

Prisoner Health is Public Health: Understanding and improving responses to injecting drug use and infectious disease in prison populations.

This symposium will explore current policy and clinical responses to injecting drug use and infectious disease in prisoners and ex- prisoners, both in Australia and internationally. It will explore how these policies and practices impact on health, in the context of available evidence.

A series of brief, focussed presentations by leading researchers, policy makers and clinicians will be followed by facilitated discussion of current and potential responses to injecting drug use and infectious disease care and prevention among prisoners and ex-prisoners.

See http://creidu.edu.au/prisoner-health-is-public-health.html for full details

Topics Covered

  • Epidemiology of injecting drug use and infectious disease in prisoners
  • Evidence-based treatment responses to drug dependence, infectious disease and their co-occurrence, in prisoners and ex-prisoners
  • Harm reduction in prison settings
  • Epidemiology of injecting drug use and associated harm in ex-prisoners.

Who Should Attend?

  • Researchers with an interest in the health of prisoner and ex-prisoner populations
  • Policy makers in public health, criminal justice and justice health settings
  • Clinicians and other allied professionals working with prisoners and/or ex-prisoners.

Date & Time

Sunday 9 September, 2012

Venue

Meeting Room 2
Adelaide Convention Centre

Schedule

  • 12:00-1:00 PM: Light Lunch Provided
  • 1:00-5:00 PM: Symposium Starts (afternoon tea provided)

Price

Tickets are FREE, but spaces are limited.

RSVP

In Its Mad and Hopeless War on Cocaine, the US Has Destroyed the Lives of Millions of Innocent Farmers in Colombia

Imagine for a moment that China, in an effort to reduce cigarette smoking and associated health costs among its population, declared war on U.S. tobacco production. Imagine Chinese planes flying over American tobacco fields, spraying crop-killing poison that destroys not just tobacco, but all vegetation, wiping out farmers’ livelihoods, displacing millions of families, and contaminating the environment.

Such an act of hostility and disregard for national sovereignty would provoke, at the very least, military aggression from the United States. Yet, unbeknownst to most Americans, for the past 20 years the U.S. has conducted just such a campaign against Colombian coca farmers.

I visited Colombia for the first time in January 2012 on a delegation with Witness for Peace, an organization focused on changing U.S. policy in Latin America. A public health worker, I’d signed up for the trip to understand the origins and motives of a drug trade that contributes to a violent illicit market and shatters countless lives through addiction. By the time I left Colombia, I realized that while people who suffer from drug dependence are clear casualties of the trade, the millions of Colombian small farmers poisoned and displaced by U.S. drug policy are perhaps its greatest victims.

See on attackthesystem.com

Ministers clash over proposals to tackle abuse of alcohol

FINE GAEL and Labour Ministers are at odds over proposals to counter alcohol abuse which are due to come before Cabinet tomorrow.

A number of Fine Gael Ministers, including Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney, have expressed reservations about aspects of a plan on alcohol drawn up by Labour Minister of State at the Department of Health Róisín Shortall.

Consequently, Labour sources fear the proposals in Ms Shortall’s memorandum to Government may be put on the back-burner by Cabinet and deferred until autumn for consideration.

“There’s a lot of push back on this. We’re afraid they may kick to touch, just when leadership is needed on alcohol misuse,” said a Labour source last night.

Some Fine Gael Ministers, including Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald, are supportive of the proposals, as are Labour Ministers. However, some Fine Gael Ministers have argued that measures should be targeted at those who abuse alcohol rather than applying across the population. The document argues that people’s level of alcohol consumption generally is unhealthy.

They also have continuing reservations about plans to restrict drinks advertising and to curb, and eventually phase out, sponsorship by alcohol companies.

Earlier proposals to restrict arts and sports sponsorships by the drinks industry met with opposition from six Ministers but these have been since been watered down. Sponsorship was supposed to end in 2016 but Ms Shortall has agreed to extend the deadline by a number of years.

See on www.irishtimes.com

Global Commission on HIV and the Law

Great summary from the AIVL on the global commission:

GLOBAL COMMISSION ON HIV & THE LAW – FINAL REPORT RELEASED!!!

 

The much anticipated final report from the Global Commission on HIV & the Law: “HIV and the Law: Risks, Rights & Health” has been launched this week ahead of AIDS 2012.This landmark report explores how law and human rights can transform the global HIV/AIDS response and is available in English, Spanish, French and Russian. The Global Commission on HIV and the Law chaired by ex-President of Brazil Fernando Henrique Cardoso is an independent body of leaders and experts convened by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) on behalf of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). The Commission website http://www.hivlawcommission.org/ has access to the Full Report http://www.hivlawcommission.org/index.php/report and a range of other key papers and information from the two year process including: key working papers, submissions received, press releases, fact sheets, etc. The Executive Summary of the report can be accessed at:http://www.hivlawcommission.org/resources/report/Executive-Summary-GCHL-EN.pdf

 

The Commission was supported in its work by a Technical Advisory Committee (TAG) chaired by one of the Commissioners the Hon. Michael Kirby and also included Commissioner Mr. JVR Prasada Rao. Importantly for people who use drugs (PUD), the membership of the TAG also included a representative of the International Network of People Who Use Drugs (INPUD) who was Annie Madden the Executive Officer of the Australian Injecting & Illicit Drug Users League (AIVL). The work of the Commission ran over two years and some of the key activities included:

a)      Regional Submission Process – resulting in a large number of submissions from people who use drugs (PUD) and key harm reduction and civil society groups among many others – these submissions are available on the main Commission website: http://www.hivlawcommission.org/index.php/regional-dialogues/submissions-to-the-regional-dialogues

b)      Regional Dialogues – these were held across seven regions and included consultations and presentations from PUD representatives and other harm reduction and civil society groups – video recordings of all or parts of the Regional Dialogues are available on the main Commission website:http://www.hivlawcommission.org/index.php/regional-dialogues/regional-dialogues

c)       Working Papers and Advice – throughout the process the TAG and various consultants prepared working papers and advice to support the thinking and work of the Commissioners in writing the final report. This work has also contributing to building some key documents relating to specific areas of HIV and the law that are now available to those working on these issues – copies of the papers can be downloaded from the Commission website:http://www.hivlawcommission.org/index.php/report-working-papers . Some of the papers contain issues specifically relating to drug use, HIV and the law including “The Criminalisation of HIV Exposure and Transmission: A Global Review”, “Punitive Drug Law and the Risk Environment for Injecting Drug Users: Understanding the Connections” and “How to Best Reach HIV-Vulnerable Groups in Arab States: Drug Abuse in International Laws and Arabic Legislations”.

d)      Final Report – a link to the Full Report can found at: http://www.hivlawcommission.org/index.php/report

 

“HIV and the Law: Risks, Rights & Health” is a extremely important report that now sits alongside a growing list of major international, UN and national reports (including the Global Commission on Drugs Report and the Australia21 Report) that are calling for urgent action to halt the criminalisation of PUD and end the suffering, human rights abuses, health problems, corruption and deaths that result from the vast majority of current legal and policy approaches to drugs, their use and, the people who use them. It is a wide-ranging report that deals with highly complex and inter-related issues. Reports like this one will never be ‘all things for all people’ but, it definitely provides a new source of evidence, information and recommendations at the international, regional and domestic levels and another call to action from yet another eminent group of individuals.

 

All this information and more can be accessed on AIVL’s website at http://www.aivl.org.au/#p=17983

OxyContin addicts to heroin addicts: ‘utter failure’ of drug war | The Raw Story

The author of a landmark study on how the recent decline in abuse of the opium-based painkiller drug OxyContin has driven up heroin addiction rates slammed the “utter failure” of the American drug war’s myopic focus on “supply-side” strategies speaking to Raw Story this week, explaining that the strategy ultimately pushes addicts to embrace ever more dangerous drugs and increasingly destructive behaviors.

“What we need to focus on in government policy is not on the supply-side, which all of our policy has been toward heroin, cocaine and prescription opiods, trying to discourage their penetration into this country,” Dr. Theodore J. Cicero, Vice Chairman for Research at Washington University’s Department of Psychiatry, explained in an exclusive interview. “The reasoning is, if we cut down on the supply then the demand will eventually dry up. But our policy in that regard has been an utter failure.”

“Our conclusion, fundamentally, is that this is sort of like the balloon analogy: if you depress one location on the balloon, the volume doesn’t change and it just pops up someplace else,” he added. “Drug abuse is much like this balloon effect. You can decrease one drug, but they’re not going to stop using. The addicts who are interested in this to get high, they’re going to switch to something else.”

See on www.rawstory.com

Jobs: Project Coordinator and Fundraising Manager, ACT

The Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education (FARE) is seeking experienced people to work in Canberra. FARE is a charitable foundation working to prevent the harms associated with alcohol misuse.

 

FUNDRAISING MANAGER
Salary package up to $90,000 – two year contract

 

The Fundraising Manager’s responsibilities:

  • ·         Develop, manage and implement the fundraising strategy
  • ·         Enlist individual, not-for-profit and corporate support that results in philanthropic gifts, donations and pro-bono support
  • ·         Research funding and income generation opportunities
  • ·         Develop supporter relationships and partnerships within the third and corporate sectors, and government
  • ·         Develop and maintain a fundraising database.

 

Applicants must demonstrate the following capabilities:

  • ·         Strong project management skills with proven ability to meet financial targets
  • ·         Superior written and verbal communication skills
  • ·         Well-developed interpersonal and relationship management skills
  • ·         The ability to think strategically and act collaboratively to achieve results
    • ·         The ability to work autonomously
    • ·         A passion for working in a third sector organisation.

 

 

PROJECT COORDINATOR

Salary package up to $80,000 – one year contract

 

The Project Coordinator’s responsibilities

  • ·         Coordinate a project to promote the alcohol guidelines among health professionals and provide secretariat support to the project steering committee
  • ·        Engage and manage consultants and contractors to undertake specific research, development and communication tasks
  • ·        Undertake high quality research and policy analysis
  • ·        Maintain and develop strong working relationships with key stakeholders including government representatives and health professional bodies to further agreed positions
  • ·        Undertake reporting requirements

 

Applicants must demonstrate the following capabilities:

  • ·         Proven experience in research, policy analysis and project management
  • ·         Excellent written and verbal communication
  • ·         Demonstrated capacity to work with diverse stakeholders
  • ·         Demonstrated ability to work autonomously, manage and prioritise workload, and work to tight timelines

 

The successful applicants will also be able to access salary sacrificing options available to a health promotion charity. FARE is located in Deakin and offers a friendly, collaborative work environment.

 

We welcome applications from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

 

Applicants will need to submit a letter of no more than 500 words indicating their suitability for the position and a current CV.

For more information go to www.fare.org.au or call Jim O’Shea on (02) 6122 8600. Email applications to sarah.maloney@fare.org.au by COB 27 July 2012.