THE EXPLOSIVE MIX OF DRUGS, SEX AND CASH

Nairobi -- There are 10,000 drug addicts in the Coast Province, while 760
fresh ones get hooked every year.

A one-day workshop at the Coast General Hospital was told that about 50 per
cent of these are men in the Old Town who are married but engage in
homosexuality with rich businessmen to earn cash to buy the drugs.

Mombasa Island leads in the number of addicts with about 5,000. The others
are spread between Lunga Lunga in the South and Pate Island in the North.

A researcher, Mr Murad Saad, who is in charge of Reachout Rehabilitation
Centre in Mtwapa, said results from several research projects indicate
overwhelming evidence of a massive drug abuse in the Coast.

Participants at the workshop, organised by Reachout Rehabilitation Centre
and the Coast General Hospital, were drawn from the civil society, NGOs and
institutions.

Majority of both male and female addicts inject themselves with the drugs.
Other methods of taking it, which are fading away, are sniffing, cocktail
and smoking, the workshop heard.

About 95 per cent of the female cocaine addicts are commercial sex workers.
Between 45 and 50 per cent of them are HIV/Aids positive, the workshop heard.

Areas identified as high user zones in Mombasa are Kibokoni in the Old
Town, Majengo-King'orani, Shanzu/Mtwapa areas, Likoni and around the beaches.

Others high user towns are Diani and Ukunda in the South Coast, some parts
of Kilifi, Watamu, Malindi and Lamu.

But the sad thing is that police have almost completely neglected the Pate
Island problem, where there is no electricity, water or any type of modern
communication or essential service, the seminar was told.

"Our research at Pate Island in Lamu, which has a population of 2,000
people, shows that more than 55 per cent of the youth - who form 50 per
cent of the population - are cocaine addicts," Saad said.

And the man in-charge of drug rehabilitation programmes in the Ministry of
Health, Dr Robert Ayisi, from the National Aids Control Programme described
the problem as "very grave".

"We have started sensitising the public after realising the problem is so
big. The Government wants to consolidate the drug use versus HIV/Aids
spread in its programmes," said Dr Ayisi.

Saad said the use of a single needle by addicts had led to a fast spread of
HIV/Aids.

He said negotiations with religious organisations and other stakeholders
were ongoing to start a needle exchange programme, where users would be
encouraged to surrender their old needles for new ones free of charge at a
centre to be established at Kibokoni.

In a similar development, the Coast General Hospital chief administrator,
Dr Khadija Shikelly, said 6,000 Aids patients were earmarked for free
anti-retroviral drugs in the province.

The programme, to be funded by USAid, will run between now and 2005.