PROGRAMS to prevent the spread of HIV and hepatitis among injecting drug users is inadequate in many countries, and presents a "critical public health problem" according to reviews by Australian researchers from the University of NSW's National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre.
Published in The Lancet Global Health yesterday, the authors of the two reviews estimate 15.6m people globally have recently injected drugs, and of these 18% are living with HIV infection and 52% test positive for hepatitis C antibody.
"Yet despite evidence that needle syringe programs (NSP) and opioid substitution therapy (OST) reduce HIV and HCV infections, they are still not being implemented in many places," the authors state.
Australia is one of only four countries worldwide with high coverage of both NSP and OST, with the others being Austria, the Netherlands and Norway.
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