The BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS (BC-CfE) is grateful for the funding awarded by Health Canada’s Substance Use and Addictions Program (SUAP). The $3.6M for 2020 to 2023 will support an evidence-informed innovative Safer Drug Supply Program at the BC-CfE’s Hope to Health Research & Innovation Complex in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES).
BC has been under a public health emergency since the Spring of 2016 due to the significant rise in opioid-related overdose deaths. More than 6,500 people have fatally overdosed since the declaration of an emergency and now, with the concurrent public health emergency of the COVID-19 pandemic, the problem is getting worse with approximately five British Columbians dying every day as a result of overdoses. The COVID-19 pandemic has made BC’s street drug supply more toxic, and access to services more cumbersome; as a result, more people are dying from accidental overdoses.