Needle-exchange Programme - History and Development

History and Development

Needle-exchange programmes can be traced back to informal activities undertaken during the 1970s, however the idea is likely to have been discovered a number of times in different locations. The first government-approved initiative was undertaken in the early to mid 1980s, with other initiatives following closely. While the initial Dutch programme was motivated by concerns regarding an outbreak of hepatitis B, the AIDS pandemic motivated the rapid adoption of these programmes around the world. This reflects the pragmatic response to the pandemic undertaken by some governments, and encapsulated in the harm reduction / minimization philosophy.

Read more about this topic:  Needle-exchange Programme

Famous quotes containing the words history and, history and/or development:

    The basic idea which runs right through modern history and modern liberalism is that the public has got to be marginalized. The general public are viewed as no more than ignorant and meddlesome outsiders, a bewildered herd.
    Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)

    The awareness that health is dependent upon habits that we control makes us the first generation in history that to a large extent determines its own destiny.
    Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)

    I hope I may claim in the present work to have made it probable that the laws of arithmetic are analytic judgments and consequently a priori. Arithmetic thus becomes simply a development of logic, and every proposition of arithmetic a law of logic, albeit a derivative one. To apply arithmetic in the physical sciences is to bring logic to bear on observed facts; calculation becomes deduction.
    Gottlob Frege (1848–1925)