Strengthening treatment and rehabilitation services for drug abusers in Egypt

In 2001 the UNODC Regional Office in Egypt launched a project to build a coordinated treatment and rehabilitation programme and to strengthen residential treatment, implement aftercare services, offer in-service training and provide treatment services in prisons, with the goal of eventually reducing the number of drug addicts.

A Rapid Situation Assessment on Patterns and Trends in Drug Abuse in Egypt (RSA), conducted by the Ministry of Health with support from UNODC in 1999, showed that the largest proportion of the drug abusing population interviewed was using cough medicine, opium and other psychotropic substances in tablet form, with only a minority injecting drugs. Among injecting drug users, one-third shared injecting equipment with friends and over 10 per cent with strangers.

In the late 1990s, the annual prevalence of drug abuse for those aged 15 and above was 5.2 per cent. The figures are staggering, especially when considering that Cairo alone has a population of about 16 million. Yet only a few hundred people in Egypt are currently being treated in rehabilitation facilities. As pointed out in the RSA, only a small minority of drug abusers seek professional help from formal sources. Apart from inhibiting cultural stigmas related to drug addiction, existing treatment and rehabilitation centres are generally considered to be inadequate for the increasing number of drug addicts in the country. People more often seek help from their family and friends, or stop by themselves.

For the first time in Egypt, the project - with the active involvement of six hospitals, two NGOs and three prisons - will consider social work as an essential component of drug rehabilitation and treatment. In March a workshop was held in Cairo. Canadian, Egyptian and Jordanian doctors joined in an effort for sub-regional cooperation and to foster a strategy regarding the treatment of drug abusers, exchanging expertize and adding an essential social dimension to the current psychiatric treatment methods.

After the first few weeks of detoxification therapy, drug addicts in Egypt are now learning how to relieve their unhappiness through painting and sculpture, physical activities or reading. Other activities focus on providing drug abusers with skills to facilitate reintroduction into the professional world, including typing classes and a sewing workshop that allows patients to assist in making uniforms for hospital personnel. Also for the first time in Egypt, separate facilities have been established for the treatment of female patients. The development of a database common to all the hospitals involved in the project will represent an innovative and useful tool in defining the profile of drug abusers and the reasons for drug abuse.

UNODC's project is a first step in fostering the development of rehabilitation facilities in the country. Drug abusers who join treatment centres recognize the need to seek professional help to enable them to rejoin society in a healthy and productive way.