Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1995. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1995. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia, Inc. - 17 Oct 1995
"Rapid transmission of (the AIDS virus) is not inevitable among injecting drug users," said the report from Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City.
The finding "clearly contradicts the opinion expressed by some public health officials that the only way to prevent (AIDS) infection among injecting drug users is to stop their drug injection," it added.
The study, published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association, covered Glasgow, Sydney, Toronto and Lund, Sweden, and Tacoma in Washington state, where infection with the AIDS virus remained at less than five percent among injecting drug users over a five-year period.
That was far lower than New York, where infections increased from 10 percent to 50 percent among the same group of people over five years; Bangkok, where infections went from two percent to more than 40 percent in two years; or Edinburgh, where they jumped from none to 40 percent in one year.
"The first two common characteristics across the five cities (with low infection rates) were that prevention efforts were initiated relatively early and included large-scale provision of sterile injection equipment," the study said.
"The third common characteristic ... was that they all involved community outreach to injecting drug users to disseminate AIDS information and risk-reduction supplies and to build trust ... all outreach programs also provided referrals to other services, such as drug abuse treatment and (AIDS) counseling and testing," it added.
In all five cities large numbers of drug abusers reported changes in their habits in order to avoid the disease, the researchers said. They said the data "would appear to be the strongest evidence to date that it is possible to prevent epidemics of (AIDS virus) transmission in the very high risk group of injecting drug users."
The virus that causes AIDS can be spread by blood when drug users share needles and syringes.
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