VISAKHAPATNAM: With the student community being the most affected due to consumption of drugs, an oral substitute therapy (OST) centre will come up in the city soon for their rehabilitation. The centre, which will be working under the department of District Medical and Health Office and Andhra Pradesh State Aids Control Society (APSACS), will be housed in the premises of Government Hospital for Mental Care, Visakhapatnam.
At present, there is a government de-addiction centre for alcohol addicts; not many drug addicts come here for rehabilitation. The soon-to-come OST centre will be specifically dedicated to rehabilitating drug addicts not only from the city but also from various districts.
As part of a programme by District Aids Prevention Control Centre, the city has identified 420 drug addicts, who take drugs intravenously (use needles to inject drugs). They use the same needle on two to three persons, resulting in likely transmission of HIV if some person is affected with HIV positive.
A survey by District Aids Prevention Control Centre found a shortage of injections at medical stores as a cause for regular drug addicts using the same needle four to five times to inject drugs. While there are many drug addicts among college-going students aged between 18 and 20 years, not many are brought for rehabilitation unless the stage is severe.
The OST centre, which will come up in the city soon, will prescribe oral medicines to the patients that will over a period time kill the urge for consuming drugs in a person.
“There are de-addiction centres here, but they are expensive. Drug addicts go to the centre to rid themselves of the habit and once they are discharged, most of them get back to consuming drugs again. The new OST centre will be a different treatment for such die-hard addicts. Here we can observe them when he or she visits the centre for medicine,” KVR Shailaja, representative of APSACS, said.