Placing issue of HIV among drug users on global agenda

Mar 14 2013

"In wide-ranging opening remarks to the current session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna, the Executive Director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Yury Fedotov placed HIV and drug use at the heart of the global agenda," UNAIDS reports in an article on its webpage. "Addressing the gathering of more than 1,000 representatives of Member States and civil society, he suggested that despite 'notable progress' in increasing access to HIV services for people who inject drugs, there is still a long way to go," the article states, adding, "In an apparent nod to the post-2015 development agenda Mr. Fedotov put the challenge of the epidemic within the context of a health and rights-based prism: '[H]uman rights and public health considerations must be at the core of the international response to drug use and HIV,' he maintained" (3/12).