Drugs
By Stella Kabruk
The Kaduna State Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Agency (KADSAMHSA) plans to institutionalise community-based outreach programmes to curb HIV and hepatitis among women who use drugs.
The Director-General, Dr Joseph Ike, announced this on Wednesday at the opening of a three-day Linking and Learning Meeting themed “Beyond Outreach: Sustaining Harm Reduction in a Shifting Funding Landscape.”
Ike noted that women who use drugs remain a hard-to-reach group in Northern Nigeria due to cultural barriers, citing UNODC and Federal Ministry of Health data showing that one in four drug users is female.
He said Kaduna is the first jurisdiction in Sub-Saharan Africa to implement a comprehensive Alternatives to Incarceration (ATI) programme with UNODC support.
The meeting, held with the Society for Family Health (SFH), also drew participants from Gombe, Abia, and Oyo states to share experiences and best practices.
According to Ike, discussions focused on improving HIV and hepatitis treatment linkages, expanding Needle and Syringe Programmes (NSP), and integrating complementary services into existing health structures.
Commissioner for Health, Hajiya Umma Kaltum-Ahmed, described supporting women who use drugs as both a moral and public health imperative.
She said sustaining harm reduction requires embedding services like NSPs and drop-in centres into state systems with domestic funding.
“Harm reduction must move beyond donor-driven projects to become part of our health framework,” she said, adding that Kaduna’s “Team Health” approach promotes coordination across sectors.
Kaltum-Ahmed highlighted that many women avoid health facilities due to stigma and fear of arrest, which hampers efforts to curb disease spread.
She reaffirmed the state’s commitment to protect their health and dignity.
Other stakeholders commended SFH’s role in reducing hepatitis among women living with HIV, stressing that health challenges and solutions should cross state boundaries.(NAN) (www.nannews.ng)
Edited by Yakubu Uba
