With the emergence of potent synthetic drugs, information from epidemiologists and toxicologists has become a critical component of drug policy development. However, there is a significant lack of information from epidemiologists and toxicologists in East and Southeast Asia largely due to the prevailing enforcement and seizure focused approach to addressing drug matters across the region. To address this challenge and broaden the scope of the approach utilized by governments in East and Southeast Asia to address the synthetic drug challenge, this initiative aims to establish functional networks among epidemiologists and toxicologists in the region to address the information gaps, support regional early warning purposes, and integrate their insight for developing drug policies.
There is no achievement as this is a new initiative.
Activity 1: Assessment of drug epidemiological and toxicological data availability to identify information gaps.
Activity 2: National workshops targeting epidemiological drug data development in countries identified in Activity 1.
Activity 3: National workshops targeting toxicological drug data development in countries identified in Activity 1.
Activity 4: One regional workshop among epidemiologists to discuss a working mechanism for a regional drug epidemiologist network.
Activity 5: One regional workshop among toxicologists to discuss a working mechanism for a regional drug toxicologist network.
Activity 6: Development of data to feed into annual regional synthetic drug report, expanding the utility and audience of the report for policy and strategy formation.
Outcome 1: A functional network among drug epidemiologists is established in East and Southeast Asia.
Outcome 2: A functional network among drug toxicologists is established in East and Southeast Asia.
Outcome 3: Drug epidemiology and toxicology data availability is improved in East and Southeast Asia.
Outcome 4: The integration of drug epidemiology and toxicology data in national and regional drug reports and policy development.
Current State Participants
This is a new initiative.
Benedikt Hofmann, Deputy Regional Representative, UNODC Regional Office for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, benedikt [dot] hofmann [at] un [dot] org (benedikt[dot]hofmann[at]un[dot]org)
