HIV Prevention, treatment and care for IDU's

I have just completed a 5 day comprehensive training on HIV prevention, treatment, care and support for people who inject drugs. This was held at the Parklane Hotel in Cebu City and organized, conducted and facilitated by the World Health Organization, Dept of Health- Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the tropical Disease Foundation. It also had cooperation from the Philippine National Aids Council and participating NGO's like SHED, HDES and PNGOC who were also the pilot project implementers in General Santos City, Zamboanga City and Cebu City respectively of the Harm Reduction Concept of the Comprehensive Service Package for People Who Inject Drugs.
Technical support was provided by the WHO who sent Dr.Fabio Mesquita, technical Officer for Harm Reduction for HIV,Aids and STI. He showed data that evidenced the success of the HRP in countries where the program was implemented like Brazil and Indonesia among many other countries. There were other lectures provided by the DOh regarding the social and physical implications of drug abuse and the direct relation of the spread of HIV/AIDS/and STI particularly among people who inject drugs-PWID. Other high risk populations are men who have sex with other men, freelance commercial sex workers, and OFW's particularly those working on seafaring vessels.
A presentation was also made by the NGO's in Zamboanga City, General Santos City and Cebu City who implemented the CSP-PWID harm reduction concept on the work they had done among idu's in their locale. For work done in just 18 months from project implementation up to the present, noteworthy was their success in accomplishing their target goals in achieving negative growth for HIV/Aids/STI in their project area.
Coordinating on a regional level where project implementers and coordinators Dr.Gerard Belimac of the DOH and Philip Castro for the Tropicana Disease Foundation, whose challenges now lie in fine tuning and improving the delivery and continuity of the service package and at the same time making legislators aware and if possible, repeal existing dangerous drug laws affecting the smooth efficacy of the HRP/CSP-PWID project.
I saw that the Philippines is still, in a way, fortunate for a low prevalence of HIV/AIDS. And I am glad that there is this effort made to arrest and reverse the incidence of HIV/AIDS in our country but this effort needs to be done on a continuing basis not only at the targetted high risk populations but in all levels in our society. It is a gargantuan effort at best and needs the cooperation of all the sectors in our society. This is happening in my lifetime and that of my children and I need to do my share to help in whatever way I can.