| A harm reduction approach to HIV programming |
| “Harm reduction” refers to policies, programs, and practices that aim primarily to reduce |
| the adverse health, social, and economic consequences associated with the use of legal |
| and illegal psychoactive drugs [7]. A harm reduction approach to HIV programming |
| includes a set of nine key biomedical interventions endorsed by The World Health |
| Organization (WHO), the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), and |
| the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) [8]. These include the following |
| (1) Needle and syringe programmes (NSPs). |
| (2) Opioid substitution therapy (OST) and other drug dependence treatment. |
| (3) HIV counselling and testing (VCT). |
| (4) Antiretroviral therapy (ART). |
| (5) Prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). |
| (6) Condom programmes for people who inject drugs and their sexual partners. |
| (7) Targeted information, education, and communication (IEC) for people who inject |
| drugs and their sexual partners. |
| (8) Vaccination, diagnosis, and treatment of viral hepatitis. |
| (9) Prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of tuberculosis (TB). |
| Some advocates have suggested that a comprehensive package representing a harm |
| reduction approach reaches beyond biomedical interventions to include community- |
| oriented programs such as livelihood development and access to justice/legal services, as |
| well as an expanded list of clinical services including sexual and reproductive health and |
| prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) services [9]. |
