Myanmar

Reducing HIV prevalence in South-East Asia

This subregional project aims to contribute to the provision of comprehensive harm reduction services to injecting drug users in Myanmar.

Timeline: January 2008-December 2010

Required funding: US$ 255,000

Background

In Myanmar, heroin is being injected widely in economically depressed towns, in areas near the country's borders, around gold and jade mines and along drug trafficking routes. The price of a fix ranges between 1 and 5 US dollars. The use of drugs by injection is the second most important means of HIV transmission in a country where it is estimated that between 0.7 and 1.3 per cent of the population is HIV positive.

Objectives

  1. To enhance the policy and legal environment in which the Myanmar CFP operates
  2. To scale up harm reduction services
  3. To build community-level management capacity for service providers
  4. To increase regional engagement in South-East Asia

A comprehensive package

  • Advocacy for legal reviews and health capacity-building of counterparts
  • Drop-in centre and home-based health care
  • Assisted referrals to drug treatment and rehabilitation, including methadone maintenance therapy
  • Distribution of condoms and testing for HIV
  • Needle and syringe programmes
  • Establishment, networking and building capacity of drug users, including with regard to employment opportunities
  • Expansion of outreach and referral activities in collaboration with local counterparts and partners

UNODC manages six programmes in the Lao People's Democratic Republic and Myanmar.

Sites

In line with the strategy of the Government of Myanmar and in order to complement the HIV/AIDS work of other organizations, the project targets 10 sites in four states (Kachin, Shan, Mandalay and Yangon).

Funding arrangements

Project budget: US$ 2.55 million

Secured: 90 per cent

Donors: Government of Australia, Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID).