Vashisht Shruti, Jha Shreya, Kant Shashi, Thakur Nishakar, Rai Sanjay
Centre for Community Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India.
Indian J Community Med. 2023 Nov-Dec;48(6):846-851. doi: 10.4103/ijcm.ijcm_649_22. Epub 2023 Dec 1.
The lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic has adversely affected the lives of vulnerable population, including the injecting drug users (IDUs). The objective of the study was to document the coping mechanism adopted by IDUs and suggest measures to mitigate the adverse effects, if similar situation were to arise in future.
A qualitative study was conducted at the Targeted Intervention Non-Government Organizations catering to IDUs in Delhi and Ghaziabad district of Uttar Pradesh. Four focus group discussions among 41 IDUs and 7 key informant interviews of the NGO staff were conducted in the study. The Hindi recordings were coded and the data analysis was performed manually using grounded theory approach.
We found that the lockdown affected the lives of most of the IDUs and they found it difficult to access the harm reduction services. To cope with this, many IDUs started following alternate methods to support the drug habits. There was an increase in reuse of needles and syringes.
The lockdown during COVID-19 and the resulting challenges negatively impacted the physical and mental health of the IDUs. We recommend that in any similar future scenario, travel pass may be issued to the IDUs and the TI-NGO personnel.
由于新冠疫情实施的封锁对包括注射吸毒者在内的弱势群体的生活产生了不利影响。本研究的目的是记录注射吸毒者所采用的应对机制，并提出措施以减轻如果未来出现类似情况可能产生的不利影响。
在德里和北方邦加济阿巴德地区为注射吸毒者提供服务的有针对性干预非政府组织开展了一项定性研究。本研究对41名注射吸毒者进行了4次焦点小组讨论，并对非政府组织工作人员进行了7次关键信息访谈。对印地语录音进行编码，并采用扎根理论方法手动进行数据分析。
我们发现封锁影响了大多数注射吸毒者的生活，他们发现难以获得减少伤害服务。为应对这一情况，许多注射吸毒者开始采用替代方法来维持吸毒习惯。针头和注射器的重复使用有所增加。
新冠疫情期间的封锁以及由此带来的挑战对注射吸毒者的身心健康产生了负面影响。我们建议，在未来任何类似情况下，可为注射吸毒者和有针对性干预非政府组织工作人员发放通行许可。
