Uzbekistan: government discontinues pilot opiate substitution therapy program.

In this decade, with support from the international community, most countries of the former Soviet Union introduced opiate substitution therapy (OST) programs, using methadone or buprenorphine, in order to curb the spread of HIV and to introduce more efficient drug dependence treatment options. However, the development is uneven:While some countries have expanded their pilot projects, others have not gone beyond the pilot stage. One Central Asian country--Uzbekistan--has recently closed its pilot OST project.