PENNLIVE: …As heroin use has become more prevalent in Pennsylvania over the past decade, with it has come a new potential for the spread of blood-borne diseases. While HIV rates have declined drastically among heroin addicts since the 1980s, hepatitis has reached epidemic levels. It’s estimated that 60 to 80 percent of heroin users have hepatitis…
In July, the Harrisburg Harm Reduction Project opened Harrisburg’s first needle exchange. The group’s outreach workers visit different parts of the city for three days of the week. Like nearly all its sister exchanges across the state, the project is an unofficial program that largely eschews public attention.
“We don’t actively make ourselves well known,” said for the organization, “We don’t actively publicize what we are doing. We don’t want any backlash. We don’t any issue for the people who are using our services.”
While [Melinda Zipp, director of outreach] is proud of the group’s work in limiting the spread of infectious diseases, she said it could do more if it were officially sanctioned and funded by the city or state. It would allow her group to work in more areas of the city and for longer hours. It also would make it easier to lease a building or share a community space to operate from — which, she said, would it easier for addicts to find her program and for her outreach workers to store supplies… (more)
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Harrisburg Harm Reduction Project is an offshoot of the Lancaster Harm Reduction Project, which is also directed by Melinda Zipp.
