Syringe Exchange Programs: A Matter of Public Health Essay

Ever heard of the saying, “Clean Needles Save Lives” that is exactly what the Needle Exchange Program is. It is a program which is designed to give a clean sterile needle to a drug user, so it can prevent or protect the Injection Drug User (IDU) from having disease such as HIV and Hepatitis B. Syringe exchange programs (SEPs) provides free sterile syringes and collect used syringes from injection-drug users (IDUs) to reduce transmission of blood borne pathogens, including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis B virus, and hepatitis C virus (HCV). The idea of needle exchange program occurred in the Congress back in 1997. This program was created to prevent the IDU's from being infected by a dirty needle.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) suggested that syringe exchange programs (SEP's) do have a positive impact. Their report stated that " SEP's have been shown to be an effective way to link some hard to reach individual drug users with important public health services including TB and STD screening and treatment. Through their referrals to substance abuse treatment , SEP's can help these users to stop using drugs." There is a consensus that these programs can and do work, while producing other fringe benefits as well. The problem remains however, how to tailor a program that fits the community that is designed to serve.

saving lives, and the needle exchange program, which I prefer to call harm reduction programs, does that,” Sienkiewicz said.

“Worldwide, between 56% and 90% of people who inject drugs will be incarcerated at some point,” (“prisoners with HIV/ AIDS”). The minors today going into prison for the first time have never attempted drugs, in prison many of them are under the influence and are forced in to doing them. “In 2012, in Mauritania, HIV prevalence was an estimated 24.8% among prisoners, and 40% of this group were thought to inject drugs,” (“Prisoners HIV/ AIDS”). In prisons it is difficult to get clean injecting needles. Getting a needle is a punishable offence and therefore many people share their needles that haven’t been sterilized. Minors should not be in this type of environment because it leads to an even worse

Clean needles should not be distributed to IV drug users. The reason for this is because, it is promoting illicit drug use, making drug abusers assume that it is ok to abuse drugs, and it will only put their life in more danger. To be clear, I am not presuming that they should use unsanitary needles, because not only would they be damaging their body by abusing drugs, but they are also putting their life at risk for contracting some type of infectious disease. Consequently, they should not be provided with any needles at all. Providing them with clean needles will only increase the rate of drug use. Furthermore, providing these drug users with clean needles is against the law. Since when did promoting illicit drug use became ok? Additionally,

Kellie’s suggestion would eliminate the need to clean needles. My only question is, where would the addicts go for the needle exchange? Are you suggesting a mobile program

Therefore considering the aim of public health which is mainly prevention it will reduce the medical cost of treating these communicable diseases due to injection drug use. This idea is supported by Studies conducted in Australia and United Kingdom where the timely initiation of needle exchange programs played a very important role in limiting the spread of HIV among injection drug users and the cost to the U.S. healthcare system of treating these preventable HIV infections between $244and $538 million, respectively (Drucker, 2013). The other opposition against the needle exchange program is related to discarding used needles. Opponents of the program argue that needle exchange programs increase the number of discarded needles in the community. However harm reduction programs such as drop boxes significantly help to reduce the number of needles discarded (Luc de Montigny, Anne V. Moudon, Barbara Leigh, Kim Young,

government it has gone on to showcase that sterile syringes do reduce the spread of HIV and does not increase drug use. The policy was also recognized by the former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher stating, “After reviewing all of the research to date, the senior scientists of the Department and I have unanimously agreed that there is conclusive scientific evidence that syringe exchange programs, as part of a comprehensive HIV prevention strategy, are an effective public health intervention that reduces the transmission of HIV and does not encourage the use of illegal drugs.” (csam-asam.org) With the ongoing research of this policy, it has allowed many groups to stand behind it with high hopes of lowering the number of new HIV and viral hepatitis cases, without increasing drug use, crime, or unsafe discarding of syringes. Some of those groups that stand behind this policy are major medical and public health organizations throughout the world including the American Medical Association, Red Cross, UNICEF, National Academy of Sciences, CDC, World Health Organization, and many non-profits throughout the state and

yringe exchange programs are a very necessary service within Canada for which we should advocated. Syringe exchange programs help to reduce HIV infection rates among injection drug users while at the same time do not facilitate an increase in drug use (Wodak, A., 2006, p. 837). Syringe exchange programs provide injection drug users with sterile syringes for little to no cost (Zhang, S., Yan, P., Archibald, C., 2004). Contracting blood-borne diseases from sharing and using infected needles contributes to the overall epidemic and can spread to populations outside of injection drug users (Zhang, et al. 2004).

Clean needles should and should not be distributed to intravenous (IV) drug users. I think clean needles should be distributed to IV drug users because it decreases the use of sharing needles. IV drug users who share unclean needles put themselves at risk for life-threatening diseases like HIV/AIDS or Hepatitis B/C. For example, when a person re-uses or share needles sometimes their blood is exchange and can cause one to become infected with blood-borne diseases. According to the textbook, about 9 percent of IV drug users in the United States were infected with HIV. The best way to avoid life-threatening diseases, IV drug user should use a new needle each time they inject themselves. Syringes are not designed to be used more than twice. Therefore,

The controversial issue of whether to distribute sterile needles and Narcan or Naloxone to addicts has been an increasing issue. The increase in the use of injectable substances such as opioids has caused a rise in the number of blood borne diseases, such as HIV. Programs have tried to combat this rise by distributing clean needles to addicts through needle exchange programs. These programs trade unsanitary, used needles for fresh, sterile ones. These programs also distribute the reversal medication for opioid overdoses, Naloxone. Programs like these are trying to benefit everyone with supplies they believe will be helpful to the addicts. These supplies are continuing to hurt the addicts as well. The needles allow for profit to be made by the

In the film we saw that from blood transfusion in hemophiliacs, people could be infected by HIV, so using needles that go into your veins will do the same too. We have proven that further when people were infected with HIV during pox vaccination because they were using the same needle .40% of new HIV infection comes from IV drug users in the United States, the film showed us a couple more places where people were infected with HIV as well, for example Thailand, Russia and Africa. Therefore in places like Britain where it is populated needle exchange programs were created and administered to people, which immediately declined the number of people getting AIDS through IV drug use. In America, it didn’t work as well because the people were not getting federal funding and that the needle

They have been used by that many different people” (Wood, 2005, p.1834). It is often the case that inmates have no other choice but to share needles/equipment since sterile needles are not made available in federal or provincial prisons in Canada (Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, n.d.). More often than not, the drug-injecting equipment is home-made, such as converting ball-point pens into needles (Canadian Aids Society, 2000).

The World Health Organization wants every clinic and hospital to use only smart syringes by 2020. They are designed to not be able to be used more than once reducing the spread of deadly needle borne diseases. Re-used needles accounted for tens of thousands of new HIV infections, hundreds of thousands of new hepatitis C infection and 1.7 million new hepatitis B cases in 2010. Since 2000, worldwide needle-caused HIV cases declined by 87%, the number of needle-caused hepatitis B infections declined by 91% and the number of needle-caused hepatitis C infections declined by 83%, after the WHO insisted countries to use single-use syringes in 1999. “Many designs block users from being able to pull the syringe’s plunger up again after someone pushes it down

30 % of PWID are in north-eastern states, where injecting drug use is the major route of HIV transmission. However, HIV prevention efforts in this region have reduced the number of new infections. Research has stressed the need for early interventions for PWID in India, among which most influenced are the teenage/adolescent