Central Asia to implement drug reduction

PSI/Central Asia has been awarded $4.3 million over five years for a comprehensive drug demand reduction program funded by USAID. PSI is the largest sub-grantee among a seven-member consortium with funding of $16 million.

The aim is to promote a healthy, drug-free lifestyle among vulnerable youth in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. USAID is in the process of expanding the program to Kyrgyzstan. PSI/Central Asia's role in this ambitious intervention is to add drug reduction activities to its core, USAID-funded sexually-transmitted infection (STI) prevention program launched in 2002 targeting youth, injecting drug users (IDUs) and sex workers in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Program components will include mass media, events, educational materials, peer education, youth service centers, research and community mobilization.

The program's primary target group is youth. Other priority groups include health and law enforcement professionals, sex workers, prisoners and mobile populations.

The drug prevention program provides a new opportunity for PSI to demonstrate how social marketing can be applied effectively to an entirely new arena and shows the relevance of social marketing to an expanding array of health interventions, notes New Initiatives Director David Reene. The initiative also advances PSI's progress toward becoming a force in drug-related health interventions, at the epicenter of preventing HIV transmission in Central and Eastern Europe, Eurasia, and many parts of Asia.

Rising heroin production in Afghanistan has increased the quantity of the drug traveling through Central Asia en route to Russia and Europe, while reducing the cost, making it more affordable along the trafficking route. The U.N. Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention reports that a single dose of heroin has become less expensive than a pack of cigarettes or a beer.

Recent reports indicate injecting drug use is growing rapidly, particularly among populations vulnerable to HIV and other STIs, such as youth, sex workers and prisoners. Drug users are treated as criminals, and services such as treatment are inadequate or unavailable. USAID's assessment in Central Asia found that targeted drug prevention and education programs do not exist in these countries, and that most available information is inaccurate. Although a few local NGOs offer drug prevention classes, they lack information, support, and educational materials.

PSI now has interventions to address the negative health consequences of drug use in China, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Southeastern Europe and Thailand, as well as Central Asia. PSI implements a full range of interventions, ranging from harm and
risk reduction to primary drug use prevention. As HIV is readily transmitted via shared, unsterilized syringes, IDUs, or those receiving injection drugs in substandard medical settings, are at high risk of HIV infection and can be an important factor in spreading HIV to non-users through sexual transmission.

PSI's focus on the Central Asian Drug Demand Reduction Program is to prevent at-risk youth from beginning to use heroin. PSI is now reviewing international best practices and indicators, as well as relevant regional learning. With help from PSI/Washington Research, this is being incorporated into timely and actionable research for program design. If PSI/Central Asia's efforts are successful, fewer young people will face the terrible risks associated with drug use.

—Meg Galas and Cheryl Kolwicz, PSI/Washington

• Archives

A PSI/Central Asia educator hands out brochures on HIV/STI prevention to Kazakh youth in the city square of Alamaty, Kazakhstan. PSI/Central Asia's Drug Demand Reduction initiative builds on this existing HIV/STI prevention programs in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, applying social marketing to an entirely new health need.