Barriers to Access: Medication-Assisted Treatment and Injection-Driven HIV Epidemics

Experience has shown that methadone and buprenorphine are powerful tools for treating drug addiction, increasing access to HIV prevention and treatment, and improving the quality of life for individuals, families, and communities. In July 2005, the World Health Organization added methadone and buprenorphine to its Model List of Essential Medicines. In developed countries, medication-assisted treatment is a standard option for people who are addicted to opiates such as heroin.

Yet, as this fact sheet shows, this life-saving treatment remains largely inaccessible in developing and transitional countries with injection-driven HIV epidemics. Less than 2 percent of injecting drug users were accessing methadone or buprenorphine treatment in government clinics as of 2007.

With injection drug use accounting for ever greater numbers of HIV infections—UNAIDS estimates that nearly one-third of new infections outside Africa are among injecting drug users—the implications of failure to provide treatment are striking.