A 35-year-old unemployed man presented to Accident and Emergency with a three-day history of progressive diplopia and a one-day history of slurred speech. There was no history of fever, paraesthesiae, dysphagia, or respiratory diffi culty. He admitted drug abuse including " muscling " (intramuscular injection of heroin). On examination, the patient was well, ambulant, alert, and orientated. Vit...

background: intravenous drug users (ivdus) who share needles/syringes and practice sexual behaviors, are the most important group in the transmission of blood-borne infection diseases such as hepatitis c virus (hcv). therefore identification of prevalent high-risky behaviors among ivdus to detect the most route of transmission among them is essential to develop harm reduction programs among ivd...

results the most frequent risk factors for hcv infection were intravenous drug abuse (59.3%), unsafe sexual contact (30.5%), and history of being imprisoned (25.4%). the prevalence rate of depression in the hcv group was 55.9 % (95% ci: 42.99% - 68.87%) that was significantly higher than the corresponding rate of the control group as 17.7 % ( 95% ci: 8.49% - 28.79%) (p < 0.001). the severity of...

EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES The Clinical Case of the Month is a regular educational feature presented by the Louisiana State University Department of Medicine in New Orleans. Medical students, residents, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty collaborate in the preparation of these discussions. After reading this article, physicians should be able to identify and understand the pathophysiology, clinical ...

BACKGROUND: This paper examines the differences in demographics, drug use patterns and self reported risk behaviours between regular injecting drug users (IDU) who report engaging in sex work for money or drugs and regular injecting drug users who do not. METHODS: Cross sectional data collected from regular IDU interviewed as part of the New South Wales (NSW) Illicit Drug Reporting System (IDRS...

The HIV epidemic in Manipur, the highest HIV prevalence state of India, is primarily driven by injecting drug use. Reliable estimate of population size of injecting drug users (IDU) is critical for aiding HIV prevention program in the state to combat drug driven HIV epidemic. The study described multiplier method, an indirect technique of estimation of IDU size in five districts of Manipur, Ind...

The HIV/AIDS epidemic among injection drug users (IDUs) in Brazil has been unique in terms of temporal and geographical contrasts. This analysis explores these contrasts through the use of multilevel modeling. Standardized AIDS incidence rates among IDUs for Brazilian municipalities (1986-2000) were used as the dependent variable, with a set of social indicators as independent variables (covari...

BACKGROUND Unsafe injection practices are prevalent among injection drug users (IDU) and have resulted in numerous forms of drug-related harm including HIV/HCV transmission and other bacterial and viral infections. North America's first supervised injection facility (SIF) was established in Vancouver in order to address injection-related harms among IDU. This study sought to examine injection d...

BACKGROUND Fungal endogenous endophthalmitis in a healthy individual without any predisposing factors is very uncommon. It can occur in intravenous drug abusers, where Aspergillus is more frequently isolated as the causative organism. CASE We treated an unusual case of culture-proven endogenous Aspergillus endophthalmitis who was immunocompetent and was not an intravenous drug user. The affec...

background : drug injection is one of the most significant risk factors for viral hepatitis and human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) infection. the present study was performed to evaluate the frequency of hepatitis b (hbv) and hiv infection in idus and to identify the risk factors of these infections in this group in a central city of iran, shahre-kord. methods : this study was conducted in 2004 ...