Collaborative Mentorship Network for Chronic Pain and Addiction

The Canadian Research Initiative on Substance Misuse (CRISM), a national research consortium focused on substance use and related harms, rapidly developed six national guidance documents to address the specific needs of people who use substances, service providers, and decision makers.

“Harm reduction worker safety during the COVID-19 global pandemic”

Key point from the document:

• The rapid spread of COVID-19 and its increased burden on the health care system has especially impacted structurally vulnerable communities, and particularly people who use drugs (PWUD).
• Harm reduction settings and interventions are critical for preventing and reversing drug overdoses, providing harm reduction equipment to prevent infectious disease (e.g. HIV) spread, linking people to treatment and health care and providing other supports to PWUD. During the pandemic, harm reduction services can offer an important opportunity for providing education on community-based infection prevention and control. They are perhaps even more crucial during a pandemic when access to equipment and a predictable drug supply may be more difficult to obtain.
• Workers in harm reduction settings are at a risk of contracting infectious diseases such as COVID-19 as they often work in close contact with program participants and may come into contact with body fluids (such as blood, vomit, mucus and exhaled droplets). They may need to respond to urgent situations such as overdoses, which can place them at an even greater risk of infection (i.e. limited time to augment PPE).
• The current guidance document provides consolidated information based on the best available evidence to offer national recommendations for protecting harm reduction workers and clients in harm reduction settings from COVID-19.
• As there are many different harm reduction settings, which vary in terms of access to and need for resources, the focus of these recommendations are for application within harm reduction sites in fixed locations including supervised consumption sites.
• PPE (masks, gowns, gloves, goggles/face shields) reduces risks to harm reduction workers by preventing exposure to pathogens when used correctly.
• Governments must also offer the highest level of required protection to all health care workers including individuals working in harm reduction settings and to allocate the necessary PPE resources, as well as to prepare for pandemics and other outbreaks by stockpiling PPE.
• Harm reduction services should implement measures to ensure that adequate physical distancing and/or separation between individuals, such as staff and clients are maintained consistently, to help minimize risk of COVID-19 transmission. 

Stakeholders can also provide feedback on the guidance documents:  CRISM Rapid COVID-19 Guidance Documents Feedback Form