Press Release

Introduction of new methods and tools for drug use disorders diagnostics and treatment discussed in Dushanbe

08 April 2022

On 8 April, UNODC conducted a national round table meeting on the introduction of new methods and tools for drug use disorders diagnostics and treatment in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.

The event brought together some 20 experts from the Ministry of Health and Social Protection of Population of the Republic of Tajikistan (MHSPP); state agencies: Republican Clinical Drug Addiction Center named after Professor M.Gh. Ghulomov under MHSPP, National Drug Addiction Monitoring and Prevention Center under MHSPP, National Center for AIDS Prevention and Control under MHSPP and UNODC representatives.

“This meeting can be considered as a logical continuation of activities on improving access to quality drug dependence treatment services which have been implemented in the country since 2010 with technical support from UNODC. The meeting aims to strengthen further the capacity in drug dependence treatment and care service delivery, monitoring and research at the national level,” said Mr. Mustafa Erten, Head of the UNODC Programme Office in Tajikistan, in his opening remarks.

Mr. Borikhan Shaumarov, UNODC Regional Office for Central Asia’s Senior Programme Officer, made a presentation on the successful experience of introducing UNODC/WHO quality assurance and mapping tools for drug treatment services in Central Asia. He also informed the participants of the progress achieved towards introducing selected courses of the Universal Treatment Curriculum for Substance Use Disorders (UTC training package).

National experts made presentations on the results of piloting international quality assurance tools for drug treatment services and the research on mapping existing and potential drug dependency treatment services in Tajikistan.

The participants were also informed of the outcomes of the Stop Overdose Safely (S-O-S) initiative implementation in Tajikistan.

The presentations were followed by a discussion of recommendations on mechanisms of incorporating piloted tools for the diagnostics and treatment of drug use disorders into the national system of drug treatment services.

The round table meeting was conducted within the UNODC’s global project GLOJ71 “Treating drug dependence and its health consequences: Treatnet II” funded by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), in collaboration with Sub-programme 3 “Addressing drug use, increasing treatment of drug use disorders and preventing HIV/AIDS” of the UNODC Programme for Central Asia 2022-2025.