Not Enough Needle Exchange Programs Outside Cities

Injection drug users in rural and residential area areas have less access to needle exchange programs than those in cities do, albeit addiction rates area unit rising in non-urban areas, a brand new study shows.

Providing injection drug users with new, sterile needles and syringes in exchange for used ones reduces their risk of catching or spreading infections like HIV and viral hepatitis, the researchers explained.

Many needle exchange programs additionally offer Narcan, a drugs that may reverse overdoses from hard drug and narcotic painkillers.

The researchers found that sixty nine % of needle exchange programs within the us were in cities, with solely twenty % in rural areas and nine % in residential area areas.

The vary of services provided by the programs in numerous locations additionally varied. for instance, solely thirty seven % in rural areas offered Narcan, compared with sixty one % of these in cities.

The study was revealed within the Dec. ten issue of the U.S. Centers for malady management and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

“Syringe service programs [SSPs] are terribly effective in reducing HIV transmission within the U.S. and throughout the globe,” aforementioned study author Don Des Jarlais, a prof of psychopathology and medicine at the Icahn college of drugs at Sinai in ny town.

“Our knowledge show that rural and residential area SSPs face some special challenges in recruiting shoppers, funding and staffing, however that these programs will offer the required services once they area unit enforced. the largest downside is solely that we have a tendency to don't have enough of them in rural and residential area areas. State and native governments will save lives by extending these programs,” Des Jarlais aforementioned in a very hospital news unleash.

A recent study within the Journal of Urban Health found that 1/2 all injection drug users live outside major urban areas.

CDC study author Ann Nugent aforementioned, “Over the last twenty years, syringe service programs have proved  to be terribly potent weapons within the fight against HIV/AIDS.” Nugent may be a senior analysis associate at the Baron Edmond American state banker Chemical Dependency Institute at Sinai letter of the alphabet Israel.

“The challenge nowadays is to increase the rescue advantages of syringe exchange programs to any or all persons UN agency want them — notwithstanding wherever they live,” she said.