South African Community Epidemiology Network on Drug Use (SACENDU)

The SACENDU Project is an alcohol and other drug (AOD) sentinel surveillance system operational in Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth (PE), Mpumalanga, and Gauteng (Johannesburg/Pretoria). The system, operational since July 1996, monitors trends in AOD use and associated con-sequences on a six-monthly basis from multiple sources. Data are collected from over 50 specialist treatment centres, psychiatric hospitals, mortuaries, and the police Forensic Science Laboratories (FSL). Other data sources (e.g. community studies) are included when available. In this period treatment data were also collected from the central part of the Eastern Cape. Forensic data from the police for the 2 half of 2003 were only available for the Western & Northern Cape at the time of going to press (as reported by Western Cape FSL).