Africa, as a continent has been long associated with the term “blood” – Blood Diamonds, bloody conflicts, revolutions, massacres and genocides. But now there is a new terror in town – Addicts’ blood!
The phenomenon may sound like out of a new “Blade” movie or some other vampire novel/movie, given the recent surge in such genre, but it is actually far worse than that. The practice known as “flashblood” or “flushblood” has been reported from Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar in Tanzania and Mombasa, Kenya. In an effort to reduce the pangs of withdrawal or to share the high, heroin addicts have started to inject themselves with the blood of other addicts. And this has been mostly found in sex workers, who are on the top lists for HIV positive suspects in such cities.
This new practice can lead to a new surge of AIDS/HIV infection in relatively less AIDS affected areas such as Tanzania and Kenya, where only 3-8% of adults are HIV infected. This may seem very low, but the rates of infection in the heroin addicts in such areas are as high as 42% and 64% in female addicts, most of who support themselves through prostitution and most of who practice “flashblood”-ing. Interviews with practitioners of such action have revealed that most women do it out of kindness rather than to get high – to them it is like sharing something “valuable”, such as a sachet of heroin, with a friend who cannot afford it.
Although there have been reports of incidents of addicts selling their bloods in the East African newspapers, medical researchers have been unable to confirm the phenomenon until now.
For what is known – this just might lead to a HIV infection boom – something that the world should not look forward to.
For more details, please read this NY Times Article.
This is something that we RARELY hear about in the media on the ground in Tanzania. I’ve always seen NGOs that work on HIV/AIDS programs in Tanzania consider addicts a target group but more needs to be done to ensure that HIV infection rates with this group decrease, however, it is difficult to control given the new trends. I think these things need to be out in the open and not hidden. The idea of selling blood, which is clearly untested, should be forbidden and there should be policies put in place to penalize those that are involved in this!
Education? Why are these people resorting to drugs in the first place?
It’s a “need” for them to get high; just to balance out the lows in their lives… I guess.
This seems to be like a developing scare. Hopefully it gets tackled as soon as possible before it becomes a political problem. How? That’s if it gets out of hand and becomes expensive to control.