Research group 21 of CIBERESP which is led by Luis de la Fuente Hoz organized these April 2016 meetings where experts from 10 countries were able to participate. This was developed under the European Joint Action project on HIV and Co-Infection Prevention and Harm Reduction (HA-REACT).
The research group 21 of CIBERESP, which is coordinated by Luis de la Fuente Hoz in the Health Institute Carlos III, organized two seminars this spring in Latvia (April 14-15, 2016) and Lithuania (April 11-12, 2016) to improve the prevention of HIV in populations of people who inject drugs (PWID). These topics are within the contextual framework of the European Joint Action project on HIV and Co-Infection Prevention and Harm Reduction (HA-REACT).
These two meetings were intended for health professionals and social workers and the objectives were to make these groups aware of the importance of harm reduction (activities aimed at avoiding additional damage to the health of drug users, for example needle and syringe exchange programmes).
These two meetings took place in Riga and Vilna respectively and were each two days long. Experts from 10 countries in the European Union were present and related their experiences in the field: from the recent epidemic of HIV among drug users in Greece, coinciding with their economic crisis, to the decriminalization of drugs in Portugal, among other topics.
On their part, the Spanish experts – of CIBERESP – are leaders of the HA-REACT project work package on harm reduction and have already been working in the following activities of the project, like training to reduce death by overdose or the visit of professionals from the Baltic Region to harm reduction programmes in Spain.