Biography

Dirk Schäffer has been an employee of the Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe since 1998.

From 1998 – 2000 Dirk was nationwide coordinator of JES-Bundesverband (the national network of people who use drugs). Since 2001 he has been head of the department “Drugs and Prison”.

His work focuses on the prevention of HIV and hepatitis among people who use drugs. He has overall management of various model interventions on the topic of “Test it” (counselling and testing in low threshold drug services) and “Smoke it” (changing the way of drug application).

Dirk also works as a Consultant in Thailand and Sri Lanka aiming for the implementation of Harm reduction services and in Nepal with the aim of establishing opioid substitution treatment.

Dirk is the author of technical papers on the topics of patients’ rights, substitution treatment and drug consumption rooms.