Massimo Barra, founder of Villa Maraini, partecipated online as representative of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies at the 3rd intersessional meeting of CND started in Wien on 19th october 2020.
Barra talked about challenges in access to treatment for PWUDs during the COVID-19 pandemic:
“COVID-19 risks to become a ‘perfect excuse’ to justify inaction against people with drug use disorders. Availability of opioid substitution therapy is the 1st step to alleviate human suffering, as we stated in the Rome Consensus 2.0 Declaration. Within this health public warning for Covid-19 governments should also test & treat population for hepatitis C and HIV.
Pandemic crisis should be an opportunity to integrate harm reduction in outreach strategies at all levels."
Sign the Romne Consensus 2.0 clicking on this link:
https://romeconsensus.com/sign-on-preference/