Huge advances have been made in the treatment of HIV and AIDS. In our lifetimes, we witnessed the emergence of this global pandemic. We then watched as researchers developed anti-retroviral therapies that not only turned this devastating infection into one that was treatable, but that also vastly reduced disease transmission by reducing viral load to undetectable levels in the blood of infected patients.
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These 5 BC-CfE Findings Challenge Assumptions on Drug Use and Public Health
List by Caroline Dobuzinskis at the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV and AIDS, reprinted with permission. Read the original post here.
1. Supervised injection sites prevent needle sharing
A 2001 study found, despite the availability of a large needle-exchange program and targeted law enforcement efforts in Vancouver, needle sharing was still an alarmingly common practice. The researchers suggested the trend could be stemmed through access to safe injection sites, by alleviating the factors leading to more risky behaviours such as difficulty in getting needles.
Supporting this recommendation, a 2005 study published in The Lancet found the use of safe injection sites was associated with a reduction of close to 70% in the probability of syringe sharing. A 2011 paper published in The Lancet found Insite to be associated with a 35% reduction in overdose deaths in the area surrounding the supervised injection facility.