Commissioner Michel Kazatchkine participated in a webinar hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO), Médecins du Monde (MdM), and the International Network on Health and Hepatitis in Substance Users (INHSU) to launch new WHO guidance on opioid agonist maintenance treatment (OAMT) as an essential health service.

The guidance emphasizes OAMT as the gold standard for treating opioid use disorder and calls for its full integration into national health systems, ensuring affordability, accessibility, and continuity, including during periods of crisis. It highlights the central role of harm reduction, contingency planning such as flexible take-home dosing, ethical and non-discriminatory care, and the de-stigmatization of people who use opioids, while promoting the transition of OAMT from marginal settings into mainstream healthcare.

The webinar brought together policymakers, service providers, community organisations, and people with lived and living experience: Tereza Kasaeva (WHO), Anja Busse (WHO), Anton Basenko (INPUD), Professor Peter Vickerman (University of Bristol), Tatyana Sleiman (Skoun Lebanese Addictions Center), Dévora Kestel (WHO) and moderator Annette Verster (formerly WHO). Speakers discussed the health and social consequences of service interruptions, shared modelling on treatment gaps, and highlighted country-level approaches to integrating OAMT into national health systems.

In his intervention, Commissioner Kazatchkine positioned the guidance within the broader global drug policy landscape, underscoring the need for sustained, evidence-based, and human rights-centered treatment access. He underscored that OAMT is not only the gold standard for treating opioid use disorder but also as an essential health service that must be protected, especially in contexts of conflict, crisis, or political and funding instability.

He highlighted that OAMT coverage remains well below the level needed in many countries and stressed the importance of fully integrating OAMT into national health systems, with the support of addiction treatment and mental health professionals. He also called for resilient medication procurement supply chains, including regional production of OAMT medications and expanded implementation of flexible, take-home dosing.

A video recording of the event is available to watch here.