Africans die in pain because of fears of opiate addiction

doi:10.1136/bmj.39353.715359.DB

BMJ 2007;335:685 (6 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.39353.715359.DB

News

Africans die in pain because of fears of opiate addiction

Dorothy Logie, Mhoira Leng

Nairobi

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Attempts to improve palliative care services in Africa are beinghampered by the fear that many African professionals have ofusing morphine therapeutically and by poor access to the drug,a conference was told last month.

View larger version (39K):

Many countries in Africa have no access to morphine so thatpalliative care is reduced to the level of supportive care withoutpain relief, delegates from 35 countries heard. They were attendingthe second palliative care conference for Africa, in Nairobi.

While the world's 20 richest countries consume 86% of globaltherapeutic morphine, countries such as Rwanda use just 0.039mg per capita, one of three lowest users in the world.

Opiophobia—the fear of using morphine therapeutically—isa big obstacle facing palliative care services in the continent,the conference heard.

Fear of addiction, excessive bureaucracy, inadequate requisitioning,and a reluctance to use oral morphine outside hospital are widespreadthroughout Africa. In addition, the lack . . . [Full text of this article]

Add to CiteULike CiteULike Add to Complore Complore Add to Connotea Connotea Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us Add to Digg Digg Add to Reddit Reddit Add to Technorati Technorati What's this?

Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

The fear of Opiate addiction � not unique to Africa: Jecko Thachil
bmj.com, 8 Oct 2007 [Full text]
Opiates for pain in dying patients and in those with sickle cell disease: Felix ID Konotey-Ahulu
bmj.com, 11 Oct 2007 [Full text]