Harm reduction for people who inject drugs in New York has worked, but hasn’t reduced racial inequality
aidsmap.com, May 2015 - "Needle and syringe exchange and opiate substitution therapy in New York City has worked in reducing HIV infection in people who inject drugs (PWIDs) to the extent of almost abolishing HIV infection in white people who inject drugs, a recent study published in PLOS One shows.
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But HIV prevalence in black people who inject drugs remains high. The study finds that this is probably because now most people with HIV who present to healthcare and are categorised as people who inject drugs have actually acquired HIV through sexual contact, before they ever started injecting drugs. In other words, the HIV in non-white people who inject drugs is not due to the ‘risk class’ they are categorised in, and young African-American and Latino people who are at risk of starting to inject drugs need access to measures such as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and increased HIV testing and treatment when they are younger." Read the full study: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0126180 |