Opioid Substitution Therapy in Prisons: Reviewing the Evidence

Injection Drug Use and HIV Infection Injection drug use has been associated with severe health and social harms. 2 High rates of disease, death, crime, and the accompanying costs are drug-related harms experienced throughout the world. Injection drug use has also been identified as a key risk characteristic for HIV infection in many countries around the world. Explosive epidemics of HIV have emerged in various settings, demonstrating that HIV can spread rapidly once established within communities of people who inject drugs. The dynamics of injection drug use-driven HIV epidemics present unique challenges, giving policy makers and health authorities little time to respond in an effort to contain outbreaks of HIV infection.