Like other countries Bahrain bans sale of needles for public safety reasons. However, this forced drug addicts to use needles that are infected with the Aids virus, head of the National Sexually Transmitted Diseases Programme, Dr Sumaya Al Jowder said.
She said that after finalising the initiative, Bahrain would be the first Arab country to introduce the service in cooperation with the United Nations which is expected to be restricted to only few segments of addicts under tough control.
Dr Al Jowder’s initiative is opposed by some groups who believe that the decision would promote drug addiction, while she defended her move as an effort to control the spread of the disease.
In the last 20 years, 825 people, including 325 locals have been diagnosed with Aids and HIV. Sixty-nine per cent of Aids and HIV patients got infected because of multiple usage of needles by drug addicts, while 23 per cent of them got the disease because of unsafe sex, 4 per cent for blood transfusion, 3 per cent because of homosexuality and 1 per cent of the registered cases are children who got infected through their mothers during pregnancy.
“The initiative is in its materialising stage and will include those who fail 12 drug addiction healing steps,” she highlighted.
“The initiative is new in the Arab world but it is followed in many developed countries as give clean needles to one drug addict who is harming himself is better than allowing him to transfer the disease to others.”
