Drug addiction treatment set to improve

Dodoma.

 The Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children has moved to scale up availability of withdrawal symptoms medicines for drug addicts in the country.

This will be done through a special programme aimed at ensuring methadone medicines are readily available in the country.

Implementation of the programme, in five more regions, would include upgrading of rehabilitation centres and enhancing the country’s capacity at treating drug addicts.

Until now, methadone-based treatment is only available in Dar es Salaam Region, at the Muhimbili National Hospital and Mwananyamala and Temeke hospitals, serving 3,351 drug addicts only.

The move has come following government’s war on drug abuse, peddling and importation, hence the need to widen the scope of aiding victims with the means to recover.

Speaking exclusively to The Citizen yesterday, the Health ministry’s director for non-communicable diseases, mental health and substance abuse, Prof Ayoub Magimba, said the programme would cover Mbeya, Mwanza, Arusha, Tanga and Dodoma regions in the near future.

To implement the programme, the Don said, the ministry has secured assistance from the US President’s Emergence Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar).

He assured that all centres--old and new-- will have adequate medications for the victims.

“The tablets are very expensive but we are trying our best to ensure we bring in a large stock to cover the needs of those put to this medication. After these five regions, we are planning to extend to other regions in the country,” he added.

Prof Magimba elaborated that the first five regions were selected following a research that established that they relatively had the highest number of drug addicts compared against the national average.

“A team of professional psychiatrists conducted a country-wide research pertaining to use of diverse narcotics,” he detailed.

He noted that the ministry has already trained a number of mental health personnel for managing the centres in the relevant regions.

Prof Magimba further said the scheme would include construction of new centres as well as upgrading of the existing mental health desks.

“In Dodoma Region we are constructing a new methadone centre at Itega. It will be under the supervision of the Mrembe Referral National Psychiatric Hospital,” he said.