Hepatitis C serosorting among people who inject drugs in rural Puerto Rico

Hepatitis C serosorting among people who inject drugs in rural Puerto Rico

Due to the high cost of treatment, preventative measures to limit Hepatitis C (HCV) transmission among people who inject drugs (PWID) are encouraged by many public health officials. A key one of these is serosorting, where PWID select risk partners based on concordant HCV status. Research on the general U.S. population by Smith et al. (2013) found that knowledge of one's own HCV status facilita...

Hepatitis C virus serosorting in people who inject drugs: sorting out the details.

In developed countries such as the United States, hepatitis C virus (HCV) is primarily transmitted between people who inject drugs (PWID) due to the combination of high existing prevalence in the population, HCV’s high infectivity, and repeated exposures to multiple potential contaminated sources of both drug preparation and administration equipment [1–3]. Although HCV incidence has declined si...

Hepatitis C virus vaccines among people who inject drugs.

Most people who inject drugs (PWID) are infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV), and PWID have the highest risk of HCV infection of any risk group. The incidence of HCV infection is 5%-25% per year, demonstrating continued need for HCV infection prevention in PWID. Existing data in chimpanzees and PWID suggest that protective immunity against persistent HCV infection is achievable. Due to the hig...

Social determinants of HIV/HCV co-infection: A case study from people who inject drugs in rural Puerto Rico

Article history: Received 25 October 2016 Received in revised form 15 January 2017 Accepted 26 January 2017 Available online 30 January 2017 transmission method in Puerto Rico is injection drug use—42% of male HIV cases are attributed to injection drug use, exactly double that of the U.S. as a whole which attributes 21% of male HIV cases to injection drug use. HCV has a prevalence among the gen...

to new hepatitis C therapies for people who inject drugs