Berkeley County moves toward ‘harm reduction’

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — The Berkeley County Health Department has begun working towards creating a harm-reduction strategy to deal with the area’s drug problems.

Officials held a meeting last week to find partners for the effort that would include initiatives such as a needle exchange program.

Aside from preventing the spread of diseases such as Hepatitis and HIV, it would establish communication with addicts, according to Berkeley County Health officer Dr. Diana Gaviria.

“You can start to link them to treatment,” Gaviria said. “You can link them to testing, you can link them to all sorts of services.”

Gaviria thinks they may also explore providing people with Narcan, an opioid antagonist used in the case of drug overdose.

“And that saves lives,” Gaviria said. “In some places it’s over the counter.”

Gaviria called the discussion “extremely preliminary.”





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