Once again, through OKANA, Greece is innovating and is an example of best practice for the countries of Southeast Europe as well.

The President of OKANA, Athanasios Theocharisparticipated and spoke about the development of the organization’s network of structures and services in recent years at Belgradein the context of the Regional Round Table, organized by DPNSEE with UNODC and EMCDDA.

The initiative of the Drug Policy Network of South East Europe (DPNSEE) in collaboration with the United Nations Office on Drugs (UNODC), and especially for HIV, but also the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) highlighted the problems that exist in Southeast Europe in the field of addictions and HIV.

In his speech, the President of OKANA, Mr. Theocharis, presented the great and pioneering steps that have been taken in Greece and in OKANA in recent years both in reducing harm and in dealing with HIV and HCV.
A special moment of the meeting was the announcement of its further expansion

framework of naloxone administration now by everyone, that is, both active users and their people, which caused excitement and loud applause from the addiction professionals in the room.

Mr. Theocharis emphasized the ardent support of the Prime Minister himself, the Government, and also the Minister of Health to OKANA for solving the permanent requests of the community of our fellow addicts, among them the creation of a Supervised Use Area, but also the administration of naloxone from everyone.

In fact, institutions from Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia and others expressed their desire to have similar interventions in their countries, such as OKANA, which is now a model for them.

The exchange of OKANA’s know-how and the holistic model was a common request of all. In the next period of time there will be visits, but also an exchange of practices and knowledge from OKANA to their colleagues in Southeast Europe.