Bangladesh has been successful in maintaining a low prevalence of HIV to
date. The challenge is to sustain the low prevalence particularly in the face
of a concentrated epidemic among injecting drug users (IDU) in Dhaka and
widespread sex work across the country. Added to these problems is the
fact that most drug users (both injecting and non-injecting) in Bangladesh
are young people, while rapid urbanization and migration to the major cities
intensify the situation.
Data from across the region has shown that the pathway to injecting drug
use starts with early initiation into drugs. In the developed world,
inhalation of solvents for recreational purposes has been a long standing
problem. In South Asia, however, this is an emerging issue. Though the
exact number of children addicted to glue sniffing in Asia is not known, it
has been identified as a common problem among street children in
Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Malaysia, Pakistan, India and Philippines.
The prevalence and public health effects of solvent abuse are often
underestimated and there is inadequate local knowledge of this
phenomenon and its relationship to other risky practices.