Introduction Septic arthritis of the hip is a rare entity in acute presentation of hip pain in adults. Even though hip is the second most commonly affected joint, adult patients with septic arthritis not related to a surgical procedure represent <0.00001% of total acute admissions. Case Report We present a 32-year-old female intravenous drug abuser, positive for Hepatitis B and C who had star...

There is relatively close contact among the Nordic countries with regard to drugs. Co-operation exists, for example, between enforcement agencies and customs services, on questions of policy, as well as in research activities. Nordic "co-operation" also takes place at the level of the drug users. Denmark, and particularly Copenhagen, has long been identified as a Nordic "Mecca" for buying drugs...

Employment has been identified as an important element in the rehabilitation of drug abusers and, together with abstinence from illicit drugs and criminal involvement, is frequently used as a criterion of treatment outcome. The research literature for the last 20 years on variables affecting employment and the vocational rehabilitation of drug abusers is reviewed with an emphasis on (a) the ide...

BACKGROUND Injection drug use remains a major risk factor for HIV transmission in Georgia. The study aims to characterize the prevalence of HIV among injection drug users in Georgia. METHODS A cross-sectional, anonymous bio-behavioural survey to assess knowledge and behaviour in injection drug users in combination with laboratory testing on HIV status was conducted in five Georgian cities (Tb...

BACKGROUND New HIV diagnoses related to injection drug use (IDU) have declined in the United States. Access to clean syringes and decreasing HIV transmission among injection drug users have been HIV prevention priorities of the Rhode Island (RI) HIV community. To examine trends in IDU-related new HIV diagnoses in RI, we performed a retrospective analysis of new HIV diagnoses according to HIV ri...

The prevalence of injection drug use has been of especial interest for assessment of the impact of blood-borne viruses. However, the incidence of injection drug use has been underresearched. Our 2-fold aim in this study was to estimate 1) how many other persons, per annum, an injection drug user (IDU) has the equivalent of full responsibility (EFR) for initiating into injection drug use and 2) ...

Knowledge of prevalence of illegal drug injection can aid the design and evaluation of services for problem drug users. In this study, prevalence of recent injectors in Spain was estimated with a multiplier method using the number of injectors in a population register of new HIV diagnoses, HIV incidence among injectors from cohort studies and HIV prevalence among injectors in a drug treatment r...

Drug users have a higher incidence of colonization with Staphylococcus aureus than does the general population, and, as a result, they are at increased risk of infection with their colonizing strain. The purpose of this study was to examine the role of drug-use risk networks in S. aureus transmission, the similarity of S. aureus isolates within these networks, and the possible role of inhalatio...

A significant increase (more than 10-fold) in the number of newly diagnosed HIV-1 infections among injecting drug users (IDUs) was observed in Greece during the first seven months of 2011. Molecular epidemiology results revealed that a large proportion (96%) of HIV-1 sequences from IDUs sampled in 2011 fall within phylogenetic clusters suggesting high levels of transmission networking. Cases or...

BACKGROUND In recent years, there has been increased interest in supervised safer injecting facilities (SIF) as a strategy to reduce the harms of illicit drug use; however, little work has been done to assess drug users' satisfaction with this service. This study was undertaken to explore injection drug users' experiences and opinions regarding North America's first SIF in Vancouver, Canada. ...