Impact of HIV risk and infection and the role of prevention services.

Blood-borne infection associated with injection drug use is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality. Over the last decade, HIV infection and its clinical sequelae have had a significant impact on research and interventions involving injecting drug users (IDUs) in the United States and elsewhere. Discussed are some of the major intervention options for reducing blood-borne infections in general and HIV in particular. The use of multiple interventions is considered within the community context in which both IDUs and service providers operate. Intervention options discussed include treatment for drug dependence; voluntary and confidential HIV testing and counseling; community health outreach; bleach distribution; and easy, legal access to needles and syringes through pharmacy sales and needle exchange programs. Many surveillance and evaluative studies have examined multiple intervention efforts that include all or some of these program components and suggest positive outcomes. However, these studies tend to be limited by experimental designs that restrict attribution of causal inference. Examples of such programs in the United States and abroad are examined in terms of their potential for reducing HIV risk behaviors and averting new infections. The article concludes that diversity among AIDS prevention programs, rapid deployment (at earlier stages of epidemics), and effective coordination (minimization of interagency conflicts) are important factors in successful AIDS prevention programming and attaining disease prevention objectives.