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A growing concentration of HIV among
injection drug users in Tanzania could spill over into the general population,
an Australian researcher is warning. In Dar es Salaam, 35 percent of IDUs
surveyed had HIV, according to Dr. Mark Stoove of Melbourne’s Burnet Institute.
Infection rates were highest among female
IDUs, at 67 percent, compared with 30 percent among males. Drug trafficking
routes have fueled the rise in drug injection in the region over the past
decade, said Stoove, who presented his research at the 19th International AIDS
Conference in Washington. The high number of women IDUs infected reflects a sex
work-IDU association, a nexus seen around the world, Stoove said.
While antiretroviral therapy has led
to a decline in heterosexual HIV incidence in the past five years, increasing
prevalence among IDUs could push it back up, Stoove said.
“All of that work going into
prevention in heterosexual populations through antiretroviral therapies can
potentially be watered down by the lack of attention to particularly high-risk
populations like drug users,” Stoove said.
The study was conducted in response
to an urgent request for help by Doctors of the World, a French aid organization.
The Friends of AIDS Foundation is
dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and
empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV
virus. To learn more about The Friends of AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.
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