Jul 4 2005
An article in the Lancet says that measures to improve the health of prisoners should be based on evidence and not on political prejudice.
A health report last week by the World Health Organisation (WHO), distributed to all European ministries, brought together a abundance of evidence that shows infectious disease transmission in prisons can be prevented and even reversed by simple, safe, and cheap harm reduction strategies.
But it seems that while the public-health case for action is strong, political commitment for this method of combating health problems in prisons remains elusive.
Almost all strategies for dealing with HIV in prisons centres on a zero-tolerance approach to drug users, but the very fact that the infection rates are still climbing, only illustrates that this approach obviously does not work.
Governments are reluctant however to endorse alternative strategies.
The United Nations office on drugs and crime, and other agencies, still question the efficacy of harm-reduction measures despite evidence to the contrary.
The article comments that the failure of governments around the world to implement measures that have repeatedly been shown to reduce harm, is utterly shameful, and wastes a vital opportunity to improve the health of a population that is often beyond the reach of public health efforts.
It is time, it says for a global approach to acknowledge the contribution of prison health to health inequalities, and to make prison health a priority by convincing governments that health policy must be based on evidence and not political prejudice.
The article is published in the current edition of the Lancet.