Shenzhen will open three methadone clinics early next year to
offer a heroin substitute in a bid to reduce HIV infection among
drug addicts, an official with the city's health bureau confirmed
Wednesday.
Methadone, ingested rather than injected, can cut down HIV
infections among drug users by reducing the use of shared syringes.
This will be the first time that Shenzhen has opened such a
clinic.
Yang Hao with the bureau's disease prevention department did not
reveal the detailed addresses of the clinics, saying they will be
in Longgang, Bao'an and Luohu districts and are yet to be approved
by provincial authorities. He said the chosen venues are far from
densely populated areas, government offices, schools and
kindergartens.
Each clinic will have at least seven staff, including a senior
doctor in charge, two nurses and doctors trained in AIDS prevention
and mental health, a pharmacist and a security guard. Four should
be working in the clinic during open hours.
Those aged over 20 who cannot abstain from drugs after repeated
treatments at rehabilitation centers are eligible to use the
service. They are also required to have lived in the city for at
least six months and be mentally healthy. However, these
restrictions do not apply to people with HIV.
Drug users need to present their ID cards and certificates from
rehabilitation centers when applying for the service with district
health authorities. They are required to sign an agreement
promising to stop using other drugs during the methadone treatment
and accept random urine tests.
As the cost of methadone is paid for by the state treasury, drug
users only need to pay 10 yuan (US$1.27) for 10 ml of methadone to
cover the clinics' running costs. Doctors will monitor the volume
of the drug according to the condition of different drug users, who
will not be allowed to take methadone away from the clinics to
prevent its misuse.
More than half of the 573 HIV cases reported in Shenzhen this
year, 55.9 percent of the total, were infected through sharing
syringes, according to a report by the city's Center for Disease
Control and Prevention last week.
Methadone is a synthetic anesthetic with fewer side effects than
morphine. With doses lasting 24 hours, methadone has been widely
used as a substitute to treat drug users and reduce their
dependence on heroin.
China opened 206 methadone clinics over the past four months,
Xinhua News Agency said in October. The new outlets bring the
number of methadone clinics in the country to 307, Xinhua said. It
didn't give locations but said they now covers two-thirds of
China's 31 provinces and regions.
In Beijing, methadone clinics have been set up in all its six
districts.
(Shenzhen Daily December 7, 2006)