Transcript example of student poster_IDU

St. n: xxxx
GROUP Z: HIV AND DRUG
MISUSE
GLOBAL OVERVIEW OF INJECTING DRUG USE AND HIV INFECTION
AMONG INJECTING DRUG USERS
Introduction
The UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS ‘Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS’ acknowledged that ‘by the end of 2000, 36.1 million people
worldwide were living with HIV/AIDS, 90% in developing countries’ (UN, 2001). Ten percent of the HIV/AIDS cases worldwide are attributed to injecting drug use (IDU)
(UNAIDS et al, 2003). By the end of 1999 IDU had been reported by 136 countries and 114 have reported HIV infections associated with IDU (UNAIDS, 2002).
Regionally, while sub-Saharan Africa contains 70% of the HIV/AIDS cases with heterosexual transmission as the main route (Morison L, 2001), China, Indonesia, Viet
Nam, several Asian republics, the Baltic States and North Africa have HIV epidemics driven by unsafe drug-injecting practices (UNAIDS 2003a). Furthermore, it has
been recently estimated that in many countries in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and the Southern cone of Latin America, the sharing of injecting equipment is the
primary mode of transmission, accounting for 30–90% of all reported infections (UNAIDS, 2003b).
Estimates of the prevalence of IDU and related HIV infection are critical to planning intervention responses, and to measuring the coverage of interventions (e.g.
needle exchange/distribution) and the provision of anti-retroviral treatment (ARV) for IDU (Aceijas et al, 2004).
Methods
This poster offers and overview of the extent of HIV infection among injecting drug users [IDUs] worldwide.
Main parameters investigated were the size of the estimated IDU populations in different countries and the HIV prevalence reported among them.
Published and unpublished documents containing data on those parameters for 1998/2003 were identified and used for this poster.
Figure 1: IDU populations worldwide 1998-2003
Findings on IDU populations
Data collected suggests an estimate of 13.2 million IDUs (0.3% of the 4 billion adult population) by
the end of 2003. The majority - 10.3 million (78%) – were in developing and transitional countries.
Their regional distribution been [Figure 1]. :
Western Europe: 1 to 1.4 million,
Eastern Europe and Central Asia: 2.3-4.1m,
South & South-east Asia: 1.3 and 5.3m,
East-Asia & Pacific: 0.6-4m,
North Africa & Middle-East: 0.3-0.6m,
Sub-Saharan Africa: ~9000,
Latin America: 0.7-1.3m,
Caribbean: 21,000-35,000,
North America: 1.4m and,
Australia & New Zealand: 89,000-298,000 IDUs.
Table 1: The 25 countries with the highest [>20%} HIV prevalence
among IDUs 1998/2003
Region
Country
HIV PREV. AMONG IDUs
[%] [range]
Lowest
Findings on HIV prevalence among IDUs
Estimates of HIV prevalence >0% among IDU were found 78 countries/territories [table 1]. HIV
prevalence among IDU was less than 5% in 43 countries/territories. In a further 16 countries the
prevalence was between 5%-20%. There were 25 countries that had HIV prevalence of >20%, and
of these in 15 (seven of these in East, South and South-east Asia) there was at least one report of
HIV prevalence of >50% among IDUs.
The 25 countries and territories with at least one report of HIV prevalence of >20% were: Belarus,
Estonia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Serbia and Montenegro, Spain,
Libya, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand and Vietnam, China, Argentina, Brazil
and Uruguay, Puerto Rico [Table 1].
Belarus
0
67
Estonia
13
41
0
26
0
64.5
Ukraine
8.5
73.67
Italy
0.6
65.6
Netherlands
0.5
25.9
0
41.3
Serbia and Montenegro
4.6
43.7
Spain
1.3
66.5
Libya
0.5
59.4
India
1.3
81
14.9
56
Malaysia
10
40
Myanmar
7
92.3
8.3
80
Thailand
0
90.9
Vietnam
0
89.4
China
0
84
Argentina
7.6
80
Brazil
15
42
Eastern Europe & Central
Kazakhstan
Asia
Russia
Western Europe
MENA
Portugal
Indonesia
South & South-East Asia
Nepal
East – Asia & Pacific
Latin America
Uruguay
Caribbean
North America
Higher
Puerto Rico
24.4*
42.4
55.2
USA
0.4
42
Canada
1.1
47.9
*: only one figure found
Source: Self-production from Aceijas et al, 2004
Discussion
The reviewed sources suggest approximated 13.2 million IDUs globally in 130 countries. However, this figure must be treated with great caution as the number of
sources reviewed was limited and the validity of such figures is questioned by the very authors too. HIV prevalence among IDUs was found reported in 78
countries. Again, due to the limited number of sources screened, the figure might be much higher.
Information on the prevalence of HIV among IDU in developing/transitional countries is scarcer than in developed countries. Paradoxically, although most of the
research on IDU populations or in HIV infection in IDU populations has been conducted in the developed the reviewed documents suggest that the scale of IDU
and of IDU-related HIV infection is far higher in developing/transitional countries.
Furthermore, in these countries, IDU represent the most prevalent group among those infected with HIV (e.g.: IDUs account for 82% of all HIV/AIDS cases in
Central and Eastern Europe and Former Soviet Union (CEE/FSU) states (CEEHRN, 2002).
It is well known that monitoring risk behaviours in hidden populations is not straightforward (Hickman et al, 2002). However efforts to improve the accuracy of the
information systems should be encouraged. This author recommends that UNAIDS, UNODC, WHO and other agencies improve the monitoring of IDU and HIV
epidemics among IDU worldwide that could inform of the global epidemic and breakdown among high-risk groups which was largely missing for IDU in the last
report (UNAIDS, 2004).