Just under half (46%) of the total global population of people who inject drugs live in Asia.

In 2018, there were 179 countries worldwide that reported people who inject drugs, but just 86 of these countries implement needle and syringe programmes. This is a slight reduction from 2016 levels, when 90 countries provided NSPs. 

Despite overwhelming evidence of the effectiveness of harm reduction for preventing the spread of HIV and reducing other harms associated with drug use, global harm reduction service coverage remains insufficient. 

There are particular challenges in maintaining women living with HIV in care and on effective ART throughout the breastfeeding period, as well as reducing, detecting and managing new infections occurring among women while they are pregnant or breastfeeding. As a result, in some countries more infant infections are now occurring during the postnatal period rather than pregnancy or labour.