Hanoi will start using methadone, a synthetic drug, as a therapeutic tool to detoxify heroin addicts at two detoxification centres in the fourth quarter of this year, and four more centres next year, the municipal Department of Health announced on July 26.

Some 1,500 out of 17,600 drug addicts on record in the city will undergo methadone therapy, the department’s vice director Nguyen Van Dung said, adding that the investment for the pilot detoxification project in 2009 will stand at 12.7 billion VND ($747,000), all coming from foreign funds.

Up to 75% of 600 heroin addicts in Ho Chi Minh City have managed to give up addiction after undergoing treatment with methadone under a one-year pilot project funded by the US Agency for International Development and the UK Department for International Development, the municipal Committee for AIDS Prevention announced in early July.

To curb the spread of HIV/AIDS among infected drug abusers who often use the same injecting equipment like syringes, and to eliminate their need to commit crimes to pay for drugs, some cities and provinces have either offered them free syringes or methadone.

After ending their orally-taken methadone treatment, the addicts face methadone withdrawal instead of the more severe heroin withdrawal.

Vietnam, with a population of some 86 million, had 173,600 drug addicts - mostly heroin users - on record as of late November 2008, down 2.8% compared with the end of 2007, according to statistics from the Ministry of Public Security.

( Source: The Vietnam Nation)