The world population has reached 7 billion people. Of these, an estimated 230 million people or 5% of the world’s adult population abused drugs at least once in 2010 according to United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2011). Approximately 27 million (0.6% of the world adult population) are problem drug users or drug addicts (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2011).
Drug addicts require treatment. In 2009, 4.5 million people worldwide were receiving treatment for problems related to drug abuse, though the need is much higher. Providing treatment to all who need it would be costly (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2012). Rough estimates show that treating all drug-dependent persons worldwide would cost $200 billion-250 billion
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In Africa, an increased use of heroin and drug injecting has emerged at an alarming trend, particularly in Kenya, Libya, Mauritius, Seychelles and the United Republic of Tanzania. In sub-Saharan Africa, 1.78 million drug users are estimated to be injecting drug users, and an estimated 221,000 injecting drug users are living with HIV (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2012).
In 2010, seven (7) out of 54 African States provided information to United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and most of them reported an increasing trend in the use of cannabis and opioids (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2011). This trend was reported notably in Nigeria, Mozambique, South Africa (cannabis only) and Swaziland but rather stable trends in the use of cocaine and amphetamine-type stimulants-ATS (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2011). This shows that there is an enormous unmet need for drug abuse prevention, treatment, care and support in developing
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The study investigated factors associated with relapse and remission of alcohol dependent persons after community based treatment. The study found that factors significantly associated with relapse to alcohol use included severity of alcohol use and craving for alcohol at intake and the age of onset of alcohol drinking. Further the study found a statistically significant predictive value in the mean score of alcohol related problems in the community based group (health, social, financial and legal). The study therefore concluded that identifying factors that are associated with relapse after alcohol dependence treatment is likely to improve the effectiveness of treatment and prevent relapse in persons at risk (Kuria,