Secretariat of the Reference Group to the United Nations on HIV and Injecting Drug Use
NDARC Staff
Richard Mattick, Louisa Degenhardt, Bradley Mathers, John Howard and Hammad Ali
Other Investigators
Alex Wodak, Director, Alcohol & Drug Services, St Vincent's Hospital
Aims
The overall objective of the Reference Group is to advise relevant UNAIDS (the United Nations Joint Program on HIV/AIDS) co-sponsors, especially the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the World Health Organization (WHO), and the UNAIDS Secretariat, as well as other members of the UN Interagency Task Team on injecting drug use, on effective approaches to HIV prevention and care among injecting drug use. The Reference Group comprises individuals selected for their expertise in the epidemiology of injecting drug use, HIV prevention or treatment.
The National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre was appointed to undertake the role of Secretariat of the Reference Group for 2007.
Design and Method
The primary tasks of the Secretariat include:
- Coordination of the Reference Group
- Management of key-indicator data holdings which are used to monitor global trends in injecting drug use and HIV as well as coverage of HIV prevention and care for injecting drug users
- Provision of ad-hoc technical support to UNAIDS co-sponsor agencies
- Production of the Reference Group's bi-annual reports (global and regional trends in the epidemiology of injecting drug use and HIV, and estimates of HIV prevention and care service coverage for injecting drug users)
- Production of thematic research papers on topics of current concern
- Management of the Reference Group website
Funding
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime