Harm reduction in Asia and the Pacific: an evolving public health response

More than two decades ago, attention was called to the uncontrolled spread of injecting drug use in many Asian countries and the virtually unnoticed but rapid spread of HIV among those who were injecting [1]. It was pointed out that constantly changing trafficking routes from the Golden Triangle were exposing new populations to the use and subsequent injecting of heroin, that these populations were forming the fertile ground for explosive but largely silent epidemics of HIV and that there were structural and other reasons why these epidemics would prove difficult to control. It was called an evolving public health crisis; the authors concluded that