Manipur ranks 9th in number of IDUs
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, March 03 2019:
Despite the ever present awareness among the people that injecting drugs poses health risks like transmission of HIV, Hepatitis C and B etc, Manipur has ranked 9th in the highest number of Injecting Drug Users (IDU) in the country.
According to a 87 paged report titled 'Magnitude of Substance Abuse' published by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment recently, there are 34 IDUs for every 1000 people in Manipur.
Additionally, Manipur has also found a place among the States which have been most affected by opioid abuse.
As per the report of the Ministry, India has around 8.5 lakh IDUs and the number of IDUs is properly documented for each States and Union Territories.
The top 10 States with the most number of IDUs in descending order are Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Manipur and Nagaland.
The report mentioned that out of every 1000 persons in UP 100 are IDUs, 88 out of 1000 persons are IDUs in Punjab, 69 in Andhra Pradesh, 64 in Telangana, 55 in Haryana, 44 in both Karnataka and Maharashtra, and 34 people out of every 1000 people in both Manipur and Nagaland.
The report continued that around 46 percent of the total IDUs use heroin, 46 percent use Buprenorphine, 4 percent use Pentazocine, 9 percent use Amphetamine.
Out of the total number of IDUs, around 49 percent inject the drug daily while around 18 percent inject the drugs 4 to 6 times a week, as per the report.
Around half of the total IDUs use their syringes repeatedly and 277 percent of the total IDUs, inject drugs in a group.
Regarding opioid abuse, the report mentioned that the North Eastern States ranked at the top compared to other States.
The North West region of the country came at a close second.
Opioid abuse is most rampant in Mizoram, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Manipur, Punjab, Haryana and Delhi in descending order as per the report.
6.90 percent of the population between the age group of 10 and 75 years abuse opioid in Mizoram, 6.50 percent in Nagaland, 5.70 percent in Arunachal Pradesh, 5.10 percent in Sikkim, 4 percent in Manipur, 2.80 percent in Punjab, 2.50 percent in Daman & Diu and Haryana, 2.30 percent in Delhi and 2 percent in Meghalaya.
The reports clearly explained that opioid namely opium and heroin are mainly used in Manipur and Nagaland though pharma opioids are not used.
However, heroin as well as pharma opioids abuse are witnessed in Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Mizoram.
It may be mentioned that the report of the Ministry was produced after National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre (NDDTC) and AIIMS experts carried out surveys at selected households of all the States and Union Territories of the country.
A total of 473569 people were involved in the survey.