the National Coordination for HIV/AIDS prevention

In coordination with the Brazilian National Ministry of Health, the National Coordination for
HIV/AIDS prevention and the UNODC field office in Brasilia, the Global Youth Network project
organized a hands-on meeting for young people involved in preventing HIV/AIDS amongst
young Injecting Drug Users (IDU’s). The meeting was held in Cuiaba, capital of the Mato Grosso
province of Brazil from 8-11 September 2001 in tandem with the IV Brazilian Congress on the
Prevention of STD and AIDS.
Fourteen representatives from eight countries, from various service organizations working
with injecting drug users met with the aim to exchange ideas, to facilitate communication,
to develop guidelines and to formulate a set of best practices to prevent injecting drug use,
HIV and AIDS among youth. The workshop discussions and proceedings provided the framework
for the formulation of these guidelines to prevent injecting drug use and related adverse
consequences, in particular, prevention of blood borne pathogens like HIV among drug users
and their sexual partners.
In particular we would like to thank Tamara Maman, Dr. Shakuntala Mudaliar of SAHAI Trust
(Chennai, India), Christian Kroll, Moruf Adelekan, Stefano Berterame, Giovanna Campello and
Gautam Babbar for their work in bringing this guide to fruition. Various people contributed by
providing comments and inputs, including UNICEF, WHO, UNFPA and UNAIDS. The Inter Agency
Task Team on young people was also involved with the consultations.
The reader will note that the term “harm reduction” is used in some of parts of the publication.
From UNODC’s point of view, this term is meant to cover those activities aimed at reducing the
health and social consequences of drug abuse, an integral part of the comprehensive approach
to drug demand reduction, as recognized in the Declaration on the Guiding Principles of Drug
Demand Reduction, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on the
World Drug Problem in 1998.
Within this document, the three following areas of activity are referred to as “harm reduction
principles”:
Reaching out to injecting drug users;
Discouraging the sharing of contaminated injecting equipment by providing sterile injecting
equipment and disinfectant materials;
Providing substitution treatment.
These principles, which were first enunciated in “Principles for preventing HIV infection among
drug users” by WHO, together with UNAIDS and the Council of Europe, in 1998, should not be
seen in isolation from overall national drug strategies or national AIDS programmes. They are,
however, valuable in guiding these national policies and programmes with regard to the specific
goal of reducing HIV transmission among injecting drug users. (WHO, 1998: Principles for
preventing HIV infection among drug users, Copenhagen: WHO Regional Office for Europe).
In addition to the above documents, the guiding policy document of UNODC’s current activities
in this work area is the ACC-approved document titled “Preventing the transmission of HIV
among drug abusers: A position paper of the United Nations System”, which was also endorsed
as a conference room paper (E/CN.7/2002/CRP.5) at the 2002 meeting of the Commission on
Narcotic Drugs (CND).