Drugs: Misuse

(asked on 19th December 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of drugs policy in reducing the rate of infection from blood borne viruses.


Answered by
Jo Churchill Portrait
Jo Churchill
Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 7th January 2020

There is good evidence that a combined approach of harm reduction programmes such as needle and syringe programmes (NSP), opioid substitution treatment and abstinence-based treatment is the most effective way to tackle public health harms, including the spread of blood borne viruses (BBVs). Vaccination, testing and treatment of infection are also effective in the control of BBVs.

Public Health England monitors drug treatment data and anonymous testing of blood samples from people using drug treatment services or NSP. The data show that these interventions have been effective in reducing BBVs in people who inject drugs (PWID). For example, the proportion of PWID who have ever been infected with hepatitis B in England, Wales and Northern Ireland has declined over the past 10 years, falling from 18% in 2008 to 9% in 2018. In addition, HIV infection is uncommon among PWID in the United Kingdom, and HIV prevalence in this risk group is low compared to many other European countries. Overall, there were 95 new HIV diagnoses in the UK during 2018 which were likely to have been acquired through injecting drug use, down from 170 in 2008.

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