BACKGROUND Street-involved youth are a population at risk of adopting injection as a route of administration, and preventing the transition to injection drug use among street youth represents a public health priority. In order to inform epidemiological research and prevention efforts, we conducted a qualitative study to investigate the initiation of injection drug use among street-involved yout...

backgroung: hbv still continues to infect many people worldwide despite the availability of an effective vaccine for more than three decades. high prevalence of hbv may exist in high risk groups, particularly among intravenous drug users (idus). this group is among groups with higher risk of infection due to their hazardous behaviors such as sharing needle for drug injection. objectives: this c...

An estimated 13 million people worldwide inject drugs. Of those, 78 percent live in developing or transitional countries. The sharing of contaminated injecting equipment has become a major driving force of the global AIDS pandemic, and is the primary mode of HIV transmission in many countries throughout Eastern Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States, and significant parts of Asia. In so...

Injecting drug use is one of the leading risk factors for infections and drug-related deaths. Despite these risks, many people who inject drugs (PWID) continue to despite access alternati...

user-generated medical messages on internet contain extensive information related to adverse drug reactions (adrs) and are known as valuable resources for post-marketing drug surveillance. the aim of this study was to find an effective method to identify messages related to adrs automatically from online user reviews.we conducted experiments on online user reviews using different feature set an...

BACKGROUND Hai Phong, located in northern Vietnam, has become a high HIV prevalence province among Injecting Drug Users (IDUs) since the infection shifted from the southern to the northern region of the country. Previous research indicates high levels of drug and sex related risk behaviour especially among younger IDUs. Our recent qualitative research provides a deeper understanding of HIV risk...

OBJECTIVES To study community wide trends in injecting prevalence and trends in injecting transitions, and determinants. DESIGN Open cohort study with follow up every four months (Amsterdam Cohort Study). Generalised estimating equations were used for statistical analysis. SETTING Amsterdam has adopted a harm reduction approach as drug policy. PARTICIPANTS 996 drug users who were recruite...

conclusions tattooing and longer duration of addiction were two important factors that significantly increased retention in the program. in contrast, history of using harm reduction services was the factor that decreased persistence. the risk of quitting the program may decrease about 68% in those who did not involve in harm reduction programs. patients and methods this cohort study analyzed da...

Approximately 10% of new HIV infections worldwide are attributable to injecting drug use, often of an opiate such as heroin. 1 Opioid substitution therapy supplies illicit drug users with a replacement drug, a prescribed medicine such as methadone or buprenorphine, which is usually administered orally in a supervised clinical setting. The effectiveness of this therapy is recognized in developed...

BACKGROUND Stigma is a key barrier for the delivery of care to patients living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). In the Asia region, the HIV/AIDS epidemic has disproportionately affected socially marginalised groups, in particular, injecting drug users. The effect of the stigmatising attitudes towards injecting drug users on perceptions of PLWHA within the health care contexts has not been thoroughly expl...