Aims. Changing drug users’ injecting behaviour is central to the project of drug services. Information about the idea of “needle Ž xation” is fragmentary and of uncertain relevance to contemporary injecting drug users. The aim of the study is to describe injecting drug users’ ideas about needle Ž xation. Participants and design. Twenty-four participants, some of whom identiŽ ed themselves as ne...

BACKGROUND Unsafe injection practices play a major role in elevated rates of morbidity and mortality among people who inject drugs (IDU). There is growing interest in the direct involvement of IDU in interventions that seek to address unsafe injecting. This study describes a drug user-led safer injecting education campaign, and explores facilitators' experiences delivering educational workshops...

BACKGROUND Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is highly prevalent in illicit drug user populations, with three in four new HCV infections related to this risk behaviour and a growing HCV disease burden in Canada. Using data from a multi-site cohort study of illicit opioid users in five Canadian cities (OPICAN), this paper explores the prevalence and predictors of HCV status in this high-risk pop...

BACKGROUND Vancouver, Canada has a pilot supervised injecting facility (SIF), where individuals can inject pre-obtained drugs under the supervision of medical staff. There has been concern that the program may facilitate ongoing drug use and delay entry into addiction treatment. METHODS We used Cox regression to examine factors associated with the time to the cessation of injecting, for a min...

BACKGROUND Hepatitis B infection in injecting drug users is an important public health problem. Active immunization against hepatitis B is immunogenic and safe, but uptake rates in targeted vaccination programmes are low. This study was undertaken to identify factors associated with the uptake of hepatitis B vaccination in injecting drug users attending a needle exchange service. METHODS A re...

From the trends of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) epidemics in South and Southeast Asia, it was postulated that an HIV epidemic would start as a blood-borne infection among injecting-drug users in the Philippines. In 2002, 560 individuals were recruited in Metro Cebu, Philippines and tested for HIV, hepatitis C virus (HCV), and hepatitis B virus (HBV) infections. The seroprevalence of anti-...