South African Community Epidemiology Network on Drug Use (SACENDU): update: alcohol and drug abuse trends: January - June 2009 (Phase 26)

The SACENDU Project is an alcohol and other drug (AOD) sentinel surveillance system now operational in 9 provinces in South Africa: Western Cape (WC: Cape Town); KwaZulu-Natal (KZN); Eastern Cape (EC); Mpumalanga (MP) and Limpopo (LP) (combined as the Northern Region: NR); Gauteng (GT: Johannesburg, Pretoria); Free State (FS), Northern Cape (NC), and Northwest (NW) (combined as the Central Region (CR). The system, operational since 1996, monitors trends in AOD use and associated consequences on a six-monthly basis from specialist AOD treatment programmes. This report will focus on data on treatment admissions from the 10 656 patients seen across the 65 centres/programmes in the 1st half of 2009 (i.e. 2009a).