Mauritania: Government Plans to Reintroduce the Death Penalty Would Lead to a Public Health Disaster

12 March 2010
International Harm Reduction Association (London)
press release

The Mauritian Prime Minister’s recent announcement that he was planning to reintroduce the death penalty in an attempt to reduce drug trafficking in the country, if successfully passed,   would bring on a public health disaster and drive injecting drug use underground in a country where some 90 per cent of HIV infections are among injecting drug users (IDUs), the International Harm Reduction Association (IHRA) said today. (1)

The main drug of injection in Mauritius is Subutex (Buprenorphine), the focus of the Prime Minister’s proposal, and it is estimated that some two per cent of the country’s adult population injects drugs, an alarmingly high rate. (2)

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