Tanzania

Tanzania is a major transit hub for heroin trafficked from Central Asia and drug consumption is widespread. There are over 300,000 people who use drugs in the country and one in ten of them inject drugs.

Despite the existence of specialist prevention and care services, over a third of people who inject drugs are infected with HIV and a quarter are living with hepatitis C. The high cost of screening and treatment for hepatitis C means many of those affected have no access to these services.

Stigmatisation and discrimination are common both within the health service and in the general population, and this presents people who use drugs with additional barriers to accessing healthcare. Furthermore, the repressive legal framework and political environment results in greater marginalisation and people being excluded from healthcare.

Similar situations are found in neighbouring countries, in particular Rwanda and Burundi. Despite the urgent need, harm reduction services are virtually non-existent in these countries.

Médecins du Monde works with people who inject drugs in Dar es Salaam to enable them to access free hepatitis C screening and treatment. We are also introducing innovative approaches to opioid substitution treatment and needle exchange programmes.

Following requests from the authorities and civil society, Médecins du Monde’s Tanzanian team also provides technical assistance to harm reduction programmes run by local organisations in Rwanda and Burundi. The team supported the Burundian government with the establishment of a clinic specialising in opioid substitution treatment and worked in partnership with four Rwandan civil society organisations to support a drug use harm reduction project.