Opioid addiction: Ministry sees success in methadone treatment
Published on: Tuesday, January 15, 2019
By: Bernama
KUALA LUMPUR: The Health Ministry’s methadone therapy for opioid addiction has proven to be successful.
Introduced 14 years ago, this treatment approach is seen to be the most effective way to reduce the risk of HIV infection among intravenous drug users who share infected needles, according to Health Ministry public health specialist Dr Fazidah Yuswan.
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Methadone, a drug used to treat dependency on opioids such as heroin, has been used by several countries such as the United States since the 1960s but Malaysia only started using it in 2005.
Opioids are a class of drugs naturally found in the opium poppy plant. Prescription opioids are used to treat moderate to severe pain but opioids can also make people feel very relaxed and “high”, which is why they can be highly addictive.
Since heroin is usually injected into the vein, it creates additional risks for the user who faces the danger of HIV or other infections.
Methadone’s efficacy in treating opioid addiction has led to a remarkable drop in the number of HIV cases among intravenous drug users.
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New HIV infection cases involving this group dropped from 66 percent (of the total number of new HIV cases) in 2005 to 3.4 percent in 2017, Dr Fazidah told Bernama.
SIGNIFICANT DROP IN HIV INFECTIONS
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She said methadone’s efficacy in reducing HIV infection risk has been proven in the Malaysian Methadone Treatment Outcome Study 2016, which was carried out by Universiti Malaya’s Centre of Excellence for Research in AIDS and the World Bank.
“The infection risk dropped significantly from 6.22 before undergoing methadone treatment to 2.65 after treatment,” she said, adding that the study also found that the therapy helped avert 1,597 cases of HIV infections between 2006 and 2013.
The methadone treatment is expected to prevent some 38,000 cases of HIV infection by 2050, she added.
Dr Fazidah said as the prime mover of the methadone therapy, the Health Ministry has made the treatment available at 403 government clinics and 55 hospitals nationwide.
“Currently, 45 per cent of government clinics are offering the treatment. The ministry is targeting to increase the percentage to 65 percent or 900 clinics nationwide by 2030,” she said.
The methadone treatment is also available at rehabilitation centres run by the National Anti-Drugs Agency at 24 locations, as well as at 22 prisons.
COST FACTOR
Between 2005 and June 2018, a total of 47,556 people had registered at government facilities to obtain methadone treatment. Out of that number, 18,000 patients are still undergoing the treatment, said Dr Fazidah.
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