Drug addict rehabilitation centre opens

KANDAHAR CITY (PAN): A 15-bed rehabilitation centre for drug addicts was inaugurated in southern Kandahar province on Sunday, officials said.

Funded by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the centre in the sixth police district of Kandahar city, the provincial capital, cost $100,000 and took a year to complete, Public Health Director Dr. Abdul Qayum Pukhla said.

He said all required facilities would be made available for patients and doctors at the centre would try to encourage rehabilitated drugs addicts through various methods not to return to drugs. He said female nurses at the centre would treat women addicted to drugs at their homes.

Counternarcotics Director Gul Mohammad Shukran stressed the need for establishing more such facilities in Kandahar, where he said the number of people addicted to drugs has been on the increase.

In Kandahar, 80,000 people are addicted to drugs while its population is nearly two million, according Shukran.

myn/ma