"According to newly available estimates, in 2022 only about 1 in 11 people with drug use disorders received drug treatment globally. The coverage of drug treatment has been decreasing, from 11 per cent of people with drug use disorders receiving drug treatment in 2015 to less than 9 per cent doing so in 2022. This decline has happened in a context in which global crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, have posed major obstacles to the provision of health services to those in need.
"Certain regions show larger gaps than others in the provision of drug-related treatment. Europe and Oceania reported the highest drug treatment coverage in 2022, with 26 per cent and 14 per cent respectively of people with drug use disorders receiving treatment, that proportion rising to about 1 in 3 people in subregions such as Western and Southern Europe. In Africa and Asia, drug treatment coverage is rather low, at 2.8 per cent and 5.1 per cent respectively in 2022. The provision of drug-related treatment seems to have slowed down in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and not yet recovered, especially in the Americas and Asia, where the proportion of people with drug use disorders receiving treatment between 2020 and 2022 was notably lower than that observed between 2015 and 2019.
"Furthermore, drug-related treatment coverage is lower among women than it is among men in all five global regions. About 1 in 18 women with drug use disorders received treatment globally in 2022, while the number was 1 in 7 for men. In regions like Africa and Asia, men in need of drug use treatment were over five times more likely to be treated than women, while in Europe men with drug use disorders were more than twice as likely as women to be treated."
UNODC, World Drug Report 2024: Key Findings and Conclusions (United Nations publication, 2024).
