ISLAMABAD, Feb 26 (AFP) - The AIDS threat for Pakistan's half-million addicts is rising amid increased intravenous heroin use, UN and Pakistani officials warned with the launch of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) report Wednesday.
"There is a serious problem looming on the horizon, which is a trend towards use of heroin through injections, said Aziz Khan, the secretary of Pakistan's Narcotics Control Division.
The problem is not unique to Pakistan alone, Khan noted.
"It is a difficult issue wherever it has erupted anywhere in world," Khan said.
"We are looking at it also from the point of the HIV threat and the United Nations is also helping us in that regard."
UN officials were concerned by the increase in numbers of heroin addicts in Pakistan, which the report said remains a transit point for international drug trafficking.
There are roughly 3.5 million addicts in Pakistan, 500,000 of whom are hooked on heroin. The country's anti-narcotics forces are ill-equipped and undermanned to curb the spread of heroin, which originates mostly in neighbouring Afghanistan.
"Much work is to be done to address the problem of drug addiction as 500,000 primarily heroin addicts are just too many for a country," said Thomas Zeindl-Cronin, the director of the UN's Pakistan office for drugs and crime.
Khan said Pakistan wanted to build a drug treatment centre in every district, but a lack of funds has made them virtually non-existent.
Though heroin from neighbouring Afghanistan has re-emerged as a major problem, Pakistan itself has drastically cut its own opium production from almost 800 metric tonnes in 1978-79 to about six metric tonnes last year, Khan said.
The government has destroyed heroin labs in the semi-autonomous tribel belt bordering Afghanistan and none have cropped up in the last six or seven years, Khan said.
The INCB report said Pakistan eradicated illicit opium poppy cultivation over 70 percent of the total area where cultivation had resumed in 2001.
"No manufacturing of heroin in significant quantities has been reported in Pakistan," said the report by the UN organ.
030226
AF030278
©AFP 2003. All Rights Reserved. AFP articles contained on the AEGiS web site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without AFP's prior written permission. You may make one copy of each article for your personal, non-commercial use only; more copies would require AFP's prior written permission. obtained from the owners of any trademarks or copyrighted materials whose marks and materials are included in AFP photos or materials. Therefore you will be solely responsible for obtaining any and all necessary releases from whatever individuals and/or entities necessary for any uses of AFP stories, photos or graphics. - http://www.afp.com/
AEGiS is made possible through unrestricted grants from Boehringer Ingelheim, the National Library of Medicine, and donations from users like you. Always watch for outdated information. This article first appeared in 2003. This material is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.
©1990, 2003 - AEGiS. AEGiS presents published material, reprinted with permission and neither endorses nor opposes any material. All materials appearing on AEGiS are protected by copyright as a collective work or compilation under U.S. copyright and other laws and are the property of AEGiS, or the party credited as the provider of the content.
