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Dear HIFA colleagues,
As we prepare for our upcoming discussion on the global opioid crisis, I invite suggestions on documents to which we could refer.
A few days ago I highlighted the new 'WHO guidance on maintaining opioid agonist maintenance treatment as an essential health service'
https://www.hifa.org/dgroups-rss/who-guidance-maintaining-opioid-agonist...
This complements two current WHO guidelines:
1. Guidelines for the psychosocially assisted pharmacological treatment of opioid dependence (2009) https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241547543
2. Community management of opioid overdose (2014) https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241548816
A news item in February 2025 announced that WHO is planning to update the above two guidelines and would hold a Guideline Development Group meeting in October 2025.
We have asked our WHO colleagues if they have an update on this and invited them to join us for the discussion.
Meanwhile, we can use the above three WHO publications as a reference for our discussion.
Would anyone like to recommend other publications?
Best wishes, Neil
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org