Programs being offered by hospitals in Tainan City and Tainan County to help heroin addicts kick their habit with methadone substitution have achieved good results, according to a doctor at National Cheng Kung University Hospital.
Wang Yu-ting (
Before joining the programs, 67 percent of the 225 drug abusers had committed criminal offenses, but after receiving the methadone treatment, the criminal recidivism rate dropped to 0.02 percent, Wang said.
He said that the hospital had treated 35 new heroin addicts in the past two months and has found that approximately 70 percent of them have contracted HIV, hepatitis or syphilis -- mostly through the intravenous injection of opiates.
Noting that intravenous injection has replaced sexual contact as the No. 1 cause of HIV transmission in the nation, Wang cited statistics saying that more than 2,000 people in Taiwan contracted HIV in 2005 from using contaminated needles or syringes to inject heroin.
Methadone substitution is a relatively inexpensive method used by many countries to treat opiate addiction.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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